Talk:Windows Vista/Archive 2

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Archive This is an archive of past discussions. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page.

Contents

Article Length and Focus?

I've been adding a lot of information & bullet points to try and capture Vista's complete list of significant (or at least interesting) new features. The article is at about 7,000 words now (about as long as the Windows XP article), and it doesn't even come close to covering everything of wide interest. Notably absent, e.g., is information about new security features, DRM / TPM information, Tablet PC & Media Center version details, and perhaps also a history of the development of Longhorn. What should we do about this? We could, for example, create a new article that is devoted to the build history of Windows. Or, the detailed list of Windows Vista features could be separated out. In my opinion, the main Windows Vista page should be readable by any audience interested in the subject, so some of the more esoteric details ("Pillars", "XPS", "Kernel", etc.) should be elsewhere. Warrens 00:43, 15 January 2006 (UTC)

Agree. Someone with in-depth knowledge should sort a lot of the technical details from those that might interest the layman - for instance, recognisable new features such as Aero or Virtual Folders, those that anyone not initiated in computing jargon can understand, should not be grouped with information on Kernel changes and so forth in such a huge article. Seegoon 14:47, 15 January 2006 (UTC)


I've gone ahead and moved the complete feature list into a separate article, and created a shorter list of the most significant new features. Warrens 12:45, 16 January 2006 (UTC)

Sanity with External Links

I notice a lot of, for lack of a better word, entrepreneurship, with the External Links section. This is becoming a serious problem. In an effort to clean up the section, I alphabetized one portion, incorporating some new relevant sites, and removing dead links, in an attempt to make it fair (and informative) for all. What I have noticed tonight are people simply adding a site wherever they see fit, disregarding any formatting rules, and apparently just trying to get their link "on the page". Constantly reverting is not 100% in my jurisdiction, as I am a small-time contributor, and I think this merits some discussion. Mikecnn 11:26, 17 December 2005 (UTC)

What's not cool is when people add their own site, and at the same time delete other competing sites that have useful information on them. I'll be reverting any such changes... this is a community effort to get good information about Vista out there, not a competition. Warrens 15:51, 13 January 2006 (UTC)
Can someone please delete the link added by 60.240.148.223. All the site has are two public news posts, a single news post for registered users that contains BitTorrent links and a single forum post. AlistairMcMillan 18:57, 14 January 2006 (UTC)
Why do you keep deleting sites off the links section? Does WinVistaSecrets have a monopoly as a valid site and the rest don't? I have seen some of the links that were deleted and most of them are legitimate sites with good information... too bad some people related to certain sites are using this article to put smaller sites down.
Disagree: Previously there were alot of spam links in the links section. WinVistaSecrets sure is a mature community judging by the amount of posts, members, and traffic going there everyday. There were however other links about vista websites that were definitely spam because those vista sites were totally new, and were relying on wikipedia for traffic. This is not the case for WinVistaSecrets.
Alistair: If you are going to say that putting a link to a certain website, which is 100% related to the content of the article, is POV or link spam, please delete all other external links to such blogs, sites, forums, etc since a game of favoritism is being played on the article's links. And please stop accusing me of vandalism for doing the same thing you have been doing (removing relevant links) 68.237.108.102 22:30, 29 January 2006 (UTC)

Merge with Aero article

I was just having a look though, and didn't really feel that the external Windows Aero article contained enough information to justify it not being a part of the Vista article. Does anyone agree or disagree? I'm just saying. --Seegoon 23:42, 25 December 2005 (UTC)

  • Disagree. The Aero article might get bigger as Microsoft provides more information, though. — Alex 00:14, 26 December 2005 (UTC)
  • Disagree. The Aero article may not be very large, but the Vista one is, and it should not focus too much on just one aspect of the programme. I think alex is right that Aero will increase in size. Not really that bothered about the merge, but the tag is very ugly, can this all be resolved so it buggers off? mastodon 17:58, 28 December 2005 (UTC)
  • Neutral Luna doesn't have its own article, on the other hand Aero is more revolutionary (sort of) —Ilyanep (Editorials) 22:02, 29 December 2005 (UTC)
  • Agree. Aero is not on its own enough to have an entire article about. The current article is only several paragraphs, and it is a bit lengthy for the topic, I think. Nicholasink 02:10, 2 January 2006 (UTC)
  • Agree. As there is a part in the Windows Vista article that is exclusively talking about Aero, I think we should add the information contained in the Aero article and add it to the section. RevoDS 11:50 AM, 3 January 2006 (GMT -4:00)
    • On a side note - how is an issue like this resolved? Does there have to be a consensus decision or a vote or what? Seegoon 13:05, 2 January 2006 (UTC)
  • Agree We should keep article fragmentation as low as possible. Right now i don't think Aero should be made a new article. Maybe we can split them later if Aero becomes too lengthy. --★Ukdragon37★talk 19:44, 3 January 2006 (UTC)
  • Disagree - It will (well, at least I assume) to expand as Microsoft gives more information. --Kilo-Lima 20:14, 3 January 2006 (UTC)
    • However right now they have not given the necessary information to allow the Aero article to constitute as a independent one. Therefore it should be merged for now. --★Ukdragon37★talk 20:21, 3 January 2006 (UTC)
      • But can you really un-merge something of (the once high) importance? --Kilo-Lima 20:23, 3 January 2006 (UTC)
  • Disagree. There will be more information released from Microsoft at a later date, and therefore expanding the article. It would be a far better idea to provide a link in the main article to the desktop environment's own article. Merging is very rarely a good idea, because if the person is interested in it (as the desktop environment is obviously mentioned in the article), they can go looking on Wikipedia for more information about it.--somody 15:33, 5 January 2006 (UTC)
  • Agree Well, the whole thing is going to need a re-do in 6-7 months anyways. We can deal with length then, as I bet a lot of the build stuff can be cut down. I don't feel like a GUI for a future OS is really worth its own article. If MS is going to release more details, we should reconsider then as to whether or not to make an Aero article. It may not be worth it when all is said and done. 172.149.103.141 03:01, 8 January 2006 (UTC)
  • Agree Aero isn't just the visible UI; it's also a design philosophy and a set of API's. However, there isn't really going to be a lot to say about it that can't be resolved to official Microsoft documentation on the matter. A paragraph or two outlining the overall Aero principles should suffice. Warrens 01:02, 11 January 2006 (UTC)
  • Disagree. Aero should have its own article because it's a new UI which is supposed to be unique. Also, I tend to believe that Vista will be special in that it has its very own GUI. LebanonChild 06:54, 10 March 2006 (UTC)
  • VSync desktop -- add something about it? ~~anonymous

Windows Vista Kernel Improvements

Windows Vista Kernel Improvements: mms://wm.microsoft.com/ms/msnse/0512/26042/kernel_windows_vista_2005_MBR.wmv Anyone can make a summary of this video?

another interesting document is this: http://www.microsoft.com/whdc/system/vista/kernel-en.mspx http://download.microsoft.com/download/9/c/5/9c5b2167-8017-4bae-9fde-d599bac8184a/kernel-en.doc

I've incorporated some of the details from this document into the article. Warrens 16:05, 11 January 2006 (UTC)

Product Activation

Has Microsoft said anything regarding product activation and Vista? Ilyanep (Talk) 19:21, 13 January 2006 (UTC)

There isn't any information about their final plans for activation in Vista, but product activation is present in the December CTP, and requires activation within 14 days. There is a new option during the install process which allows the user to say that they want activation to occur automatically after the OS has been installed. Warrens 22:29, 13 January 2006 (UTC)

MSH

The article metions that MSH is delayed from Vista. It was my understanding that MSH would be finished ahead of Vista, but not included (MSH is also currently Beta3)

Anyone else know anything? Thesidewinder 16:43, 21 January 2006 (UTC)

From what I've been able to discern from MS employee blogs and such, it sounds like they feel that MSH is considered to be a tool more for administrators and not so much end users. If MSH is finished in time, I wouldn't be too surprised if they rolled it into the "business" versions. Warrens 18:06, 21 January 2006 (UTC)

PUMA

the article does'nt talk about the Protected User.mode audio stack , could someone please add something about it ? here are some link :

http://www.microsoft.com/whdc/system/platform/64bit/kmsigning.mspx http://www.microsoft.com/whdc/winhec/tracks2005/w05_mediapcarch.mspx

done Dbiagioli 14:54, 23 January 2006 (UTC)Dbiagioli
I removed it... the "Features" list here is aimed towards everybody interested in Vista, and shouldn't be burdened with alphabet soup and esoteric framework information. We have Features new to Windows Vista for more detailed stuff like PUMA, etc.; I made a new section on that page, "Digital Rights Management"... let's focus on filling out details and references there, and address content-protection technologies in a more general sense on this article. Sound good? Warrens 19:42, 23 January 2006 (UTC)
Why do you think that the only people who read Wikipedia are end-users? I think that section needs to be cleaned up and also it needs to list some of the framework features. — Alex 22:36, 23 January 2006 (UTC)
That takes us down the slippery slope of "what's important enough to list?"... we have a separate article which gives us space to get more detailed about what's new in all areas of the operating system. There is a huge amount of stuff to cover with this operating system, and I think we'd do best to focus on the most visible stuff, and items of widest interest, instead of having the article sprawling to inifinity with lists of frameworks, API's and details. That said, Vista's DRM features probably merits its own section, given the significance of the issue.
I've been taking cues from Windows XP and Mac OS X v10.4 on how to focus feature lists for a new OS release. I started Article Length and Focus? a week ago, and you've not contributed anything to that yet. If you have specific ideas about how this could be done better, let's hear them! Warrens 00:02, 24 January 2006 (UTC)
That's because I'm busy right now, moving into the new house... Once I get DSL, I'll be more active. — Alex 03:14, 24 January 2006 (UTC)
Excellent, I look forwawrd to hearing your ideas. Warrens 06:47, 24 January 2006 (UTC)

January CTP

it's out, but isn't reported here. Could someone with the Jan CTP pls update? -- Doublez 03:38, 24 January 2006 (UTC)

I'm with the team, and there is no January CTP. BTW, please sign your posts. I signed this one for you. — Alex 04:30, 24 January 2006 (UTC)
http://msdn.microsoft.com/windowsvista/getthebeta/default.aspx <= clearly there is? thanks for signing it too.doublez 04:48, 24 January 2006 (UTC)
No, those are the WinFX runtime components and SDK... No actual Vista CTP though. — Alex 04:59, 24 January 2006 (UTC)
ah, thanks for clearing that up. doublez 05:00, 24 January 2006 (UTC)

Legality?

Maybe I'm wrong, but I remember Microsoft having lost a case in the EU in which the court ruled that Microsoft would have to distribute vanilla versions of their OS'es that come without the other pre-installed Microsoft products.

Vista seems to either contradict that (MORE pre-installed software as OS "features") or circumvent it (Outlook Express now being called Windows Mail and thus a feature rather than a seperate product). Any thoughts?

Also: Are the "features" disableable? Will Vista finally get rid of the mandatory installation of MSIE and Outlook Express? Or will these components become even more integrated with the OS (like MSIE after Win98)?

EDIT: Okay, so the distribution of seperate European versions without WiMP seems to be more along the lines of what the ruling intended, but what is with the other features? The ruling was not intended to be specificly about WiMP, but ALL Microsoft products that come pre-installed -- Ashmodai 07:10, 25 January 2006 (UTC)

the article already talk about Windows Vista N edition .. The EU ruling stated that MS had to offer two different version of the OS , one without a media player and one with it , and that's all. it also stated that MS has to document some of its interfaces to avoid unfari competition , but that's another story .Dbiagioli 08:10, 25 January 2006 (UTC)Dbiagioli

The Jim Allchin Interview

I'm going to do several updates based on this interview with Jim Allchin, all at once. Lots of interesting revelations about the Vista development cycle here. Warrens 18:11, 28 January 2006 (UTC)

Done. Warrens 19:34, 28 January 2006 (UTC)

Kernel and Core OS changes

why Kernel and Core OS changes are not anymore in the main page? I think Kernel and Core OS changes are very important to describe a new OS. And write "See also * Features new to Windows Vista" it's not good. The main important features in Vista are in Kernel and Core OS changes and so they should display in the main page and not by a link

I moved it because I feel that the Windows Vista article should be targeted towards everybody, not just a technical audience. I think of it like this -- is my mother going to care about Transactional NTFS or ACPI 3.0? Or is she going to be more interested in the calendar, search and user interface stuff?
The complete list of new features for Vista is hundreds of items long... perhaps well over a thousand! It's impossible to know; I'm looking through newly-published articles on MSDN and Technet a few times a week, and still discovering new things all the time. Features new to Windows Vista is nowhere near complete, and nowhere near detailed enough, and it already is getting lengthy. There's very little information on improvements targeted at IT and corporate deployments, for example. As such, we have to be judicious in what we include in the main Windows Vista article as a new feature list. As I've said above, I look at Mac OS X v10.4 and especially Windows XP (given that it's been a main-page feature) as good examples of what a "main page" for a consumer-oriented operating system article should look like. In particular:
  • Have a bunch of break-out articles for specific features that are going to be used often, e.g. XP's ClearType and 10.4's Spotlight;
  • Have a specific article with more details on the new features, e.g. Features new to Windows XP. Note that kernel changes to Windows XP, minor as they may have been, are in that article, not the main Vista article; and
  • Space for post-release issues should be considered: updates, contraversies and issues, sales figures, etc.
This is the very first non-Microsoft article on Vista when you do a Google search, and is also very high on other search engines. A cogent, well-focused article for everybody should be our goal. Warrens 02:18, 30 January 2006 (UTC)
You said this article should apply to everybody. Are the technical audience somebody or not? — Alex (T|C|E) 04:23, 30 January 2006 (UTC)
Rhetorical questions don't help the conversation, Alex. If you have an opinion, state it clearly. Warrens 10:13, 30 January 2006 (UTC)
I'm just saying that if you feel that this article should be targeted towards everybody, you should consider the technical audience as well. Otherwise, you are targeting this article just for end-users, and not the technical audience. — Alex (T|C|E) 22:10, 30 January 2006 (UTC)
What do you think of this revised break-down for feature lists? I think it'll be a good compromise between our view of what kind of feature lists should be shown in this article. Warrens 19:39, 8 February 2006 (UTC)
Yeah, it's better now. Thanks. — Alex (T|C|E) 22:08, 8 February 2006 (UTC)

British Windows Vista hard disk cipher backdoor...

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/4713018.stm —Preceding unsigned comment added by 195.70.32.136 (talk • contribs)

All this is, is an academic giving evidence before a committee in the Parliament. And a Home Office spokesman saying they are talking to Microsoft, which they say they do all the time. Nothing more. AlistairMcMillan 22:28, 18 February 2006 (UTC)


MS has said that they will not compomise Vista's security by placing a backdoorThesidewinder 19:51, 18 March 2006 (UTC)

The Windows Vista versions officially are...

The Windows Vista versions officially are: Windows Starter 2007, Windows Vista Enterprise, Windows Vista Home Basic, Windows Vista Home Premium, Windows Vista Ultimate, Windows Vista Business, Windows Vista Home Basic N, and Windows Vista Business N.

http://windowshelp.microsoft.com/Windows/en-US/help/c0680472-bb5f-4a9c-9480-b16ab3eeb8f51033.mspx

The professional version does not exist. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.61.58.23 (talk • contribs)

Mayhew132 18:35, 22 February 2006 (UTC)

I have filled in more infmormation for the new Feb. CTP and it is now correct. You probably can expect more information appearing their in the next few weeks.

Thanks Guy

Images?

What happened to the Vista Images? I mean, yes, they are easily accessable, but try to get images from PC Mag's website, because they have a 55-image slideshow of the February Windows VI build. --CanesOL79 16:27, 23 February 2006 (UTC)

A few more images would be nice... perhaps a grand total of four to five?... but Wikipedia isn't a gallery hosting site, nor is it marketing material, nor is it a "review" site. I like screenshots as much as the next guy, but a more appropriate use is to create (and update) break-out articles that cover significant aspects of Vista, and include a screenshot there. Warrens 18:35, 23 February 2006 (UTC)
Well, yes, I agree, we aren't here to market Windows VI, nor are we here to advertise it. However, showing a bit more images, such as images that show the new GUI effects (Flip 3D) or the Sidebar, just to show that is in fact different. --CanesOL79 17:34, 24 February 2006 (UTC)

WVDDM should be changed to WDDM

As talke about in http://www.microsoft.com/technet/windowsvista/evaluate/hardware/vistarpc.mspx. It's the official name now so I think all occurances should be changed to that. --65.8.141.243 23:27, 23 February 2006 (UTC)

They are two different driver models. — Alex (T|C|E) 02:18, 24 February 2006 (UTC)

Vista and Mac OS

Isn't Mac going to use some sort of (recently patented) content protection to prevent non-mac software from running? And as of EFI, Win XP 64 bit (IA-64) supported it since it came out. Probably the AMD64 (x86-64) versions also support the same. Why if Vista boots, what will be the problem for XP? But the question is how is Vista going to boot without bypassing/crippling the protection used?

The x64 version of Windows XP doesn't support EFI. This was a feature specific to the IA-64 versions of XP and 2003. EFI isn't the only problem, though... Vista expects the video card to support VGA, but the iMac and MacBook Pro don't support that particular video mode as they are not necessary for running OS X. Whether Microsoft will update Windows to not require VGA is anyone's guess... Warrens 16:26, 24 February 2006 (UTC)
Since Macs use the same graphics cards as pc counterparts, should vga mode be a problem? As the cards will anyway support the mode. And once the drivers load up, the mode becomes irrelevant. --Soumyasch 17:49, 25 February 2006 (UTC)

Cost

Shouldn't the estimated cost be added somewhere? KILO-LIMA 16:56, 26 February 2006 (UTC)

MS hasn't declared the pricing. So anything would be speculation only, which may be way off the actual price. So I would say this information should be held back till a formal announcement is made by MS. --Soumyasch 17:16, 26 February 2006 (UTC)

Portuguese?

The article claims the word Vista is Portuguese, but even if the word exists in Portuguese, which I don't contest, is that what MS was trying to reference? I would think they were just referencing the English meaning of the word cf. [[1]] Sumergocognito 01:07, 1 March 2006 (UTC)

The word comes from Latin language —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 201.58.139.78 (talk • contribs) .

games

does anyone know what the games are included in vista? I think theres one called Purble Place and Chess Titans. If anyone can get a screenshot of the games and a description of it,thanks. The pointer outer 22:49, 2 March 2006 (UTC)

Its probably a bit early though everyone knws about the Halo 2 port to Vistas... Vendettanine 08:32, 15 March 2006 (UTC)

Vista inspired from OS X?

In the review of build 5308 by Paul Thurrott[2], he mentions the similarities of Vista to Mac OS X by saying:

"A final general observation: I have certain misgivings about Vista resembling Mac OS X. With its translucent windows, such comparisons are going to be hard to avoid. But Vista's similarity with OS X goes well beyond window dressing. Certain applications, such as Calendar, Sidebar, and Photo Gallery, appear to be directly, ahem, influenced by similar applications in OS X. Microsoft has a response to that claim, which I'll reveal in part 2 of this review, but suffice to say they're going to get eaten alive for these similarities."

I tend to agree on some of these. The Sidebar gadgets are very similar to the Dashboard widgets on OSX. The Windows Photo Gallery resembles iPhoto on OSX also. Microsoft has had an issue similar to this in the past with Apple in their "look and feel" case filed in 1988.

Does this need a section in the article explaining more about it? 69.23.68.128 07:03, 8 March 2006 (UTC)

Of course people are going to draw similarities between Photo Gallery and iPhoto -- they both do the same thing. But keep in mind that Windows XP had built-in photo management right from the start -- importing from a camera, organizing, rotation, publishing to a web site, ordering prints. That was in *2001* that they had all this. But it doesn't end there... Microsoft has been selling photo management software for years. These days, they call it Microsoft Digital Imaging. As for the "look"... iPhoto and WPG really don't look alike at all. They do many of the same things, sure, and iPhoto is definitely a far more mature and powerful application overall, but... it's just photo management. Nothing special. As for the OS itself; speaking as someone who uses OS X and Vista every day, I assure you, Windows still feels very much like Windows... apart from the more "solid" feel to the Windows desktop thanks to the desktop compositing engine, it really doesn't feel like Microsoft was attempting to rip off Apple in any significant way. Warrens 09:55, 8 March 2006 (UTC)
IBM processors process using zero's and one's. So does Intel's. Does that mean they are copies of each other? If you feel the answer to the queston is no, why do you feel that a software becomes a copy of another software just because they do the same thing? As for Vista and Mac Os, it is quite normal that they will have overlapping features because they both are Operating Systems. As long as they don't copy code, i don't feel there is a problem implementing a certain feature, irrespective of how they got the idea to do it. --Soumyasch 11:02, 8 March 2006 (UTC)

I must say that Vista's gadgets were, in a way, planned to be in for a long time, while they were origionally meant never to be used off the sidebar, things have changed. Also, saying MS copied Dashboard is like saying that Apple copied Konfabulator (yahoo widget engine) and that konfabulator copied DesktopX from stardock. Thesidewinder 19:51, 18 March 2006 (UTC)

Split

I think that these articles should be split into seperate articles e.g 'X of Windows Vista' —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Bdude (talk • contribs) .

Can you please be more specific than that? Thank you. — Alex (T|C|E) 05:24, 12 March 2006 (UTC)
Similar to New Features in Windows Vista, the page is quite long, comapared to Windows XP, so maybe some parts could be condensed and/or split. --05:53, 12 March 2006 (UTC) —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Bdude (talk • contribs) .
Good timing... I've just created Development of Windows Vista to help us with this issue. If you have some time and motivation to help flesh out that article with information, help will be very much appreciated! Warrens 06:04, 12 March 2006 (UTC)
All this article needs now is cleanup. All the development parts were split into the other article. — Alex (T|C|E) 06:57, 12 March 2006 (UTC)

Overview

The Overview section needs a rewrite to exclude development information, since that was moved to Development of Windows Vista. — Alex (T|C|E) 06:50, 12 March 2006 (UTC)

Warren already took care of it. :-) — Alex (T|C|E) 06:52, 12 March 2006 (UTC)
I made some more changes. I think the flow makes a bit more sense now. Overall I think we've got a much better article than we did a few hours ago! Warrens 07:32, 12 March 2006 (UTC)

Hmmm ...

There was a more detailed review of the releases the last I checked, it's missing now ? —This unsigned comment is by Kumarrrr (talk • contribs) .

It moved to Development of Windows Vista.Warrens 14:10, 14 March 2006 (UTC)