I’ve written a bit about Windows Vista on this blog previously but generally left the product reviews to people like Paul Thurrott (who has both the time to do a review justice and the readership to make it worthwhile). Yesterday, I saw yet another Windows Vista presentation and (with my corporate mindset) I’m still struggling to see why I should move from Windows XP. Maybe that’s because so much is being made of the new Aero interface and there’s not been much emphasis placed on some of the other functionality. At a first glance Windows Vista has lots of new features; but many of them fall into one of the following categories:

1. Require modern graphics hardware and won’t make any real difference in a corporate setting.
2. Implement a totally new interface (or at least new ways of working) and so will require additional end-user training (which most companies won’t invest in, so people will continue to use Windows as they have done since we first saw Explorer in Windows 95).

At least, that’s what I thought until I saw James O’Neill‘s presentation at the Microsoft Technical Roadshow. It turns out that there’s a lot of hidden functionality available in Vista (that doesn’t require new hardware) and the list below is probably just scraping the surface:

• The startup/shutdown sequence is improved to allow for a more reliable sleep function/resume from hibernation.
• There’s also an improved paging algorithm (known as superfetching) whereby the operating system learns the memory pages that are used frequently and keeps them in memory (avoiding the delay that occurs in Windows XP when returning from a meeting to find that Outlook takes a while to respond because an operating system process has swapped all of its memory out to disk).
• Then there’s the ability to use a USB key as extra cache (faster than disk, slower than RAM, no problem if it’s removed suddenly because it’s just a cache, although there would be a slight performance hit for a cache rebuild).
• The operating system is intended to be self tuning, with an API that allows PC components to be scored (opening up the possibility of warning users that they can run an application but it might run slowly due to the system having a poorly-specified processor or a lack of RAM).
• The restart manager functionality allows a file to be unlocked (e.g. to apply a patch) without needing to restart the PC.
• There are improved diagnostics (e.g. to report that a hard disk has bad sectors – often a sign that the disk is about to fail).
• Security is a major area of improvement:
  • User account control/protection allows for least privileged user access, warning users where elevated privileges are requested. Unfortunately I have a feeling that most users will just ignore the warning (click the “yeah… whatever…” button) in the same way that firewall warnings are often not much help today.
  • There are anti-malware features provided through the integration of Windows Defender (it amazes me that so many of my clients are paranoid about virus protection yet don’t do anything about spyware).
  • Internet Explorer 7.0 is sandboxed (so malicious code is limited in its scope to do damage).
  • The Windows firewall is improved to allow for filtering of outbound traffic as well as inbound.
  • Client support for network access protection (NAP), allowing for quarantining of PCs when returning to the network.
  • Improved data protection (e.g. control over USB device connectivity).
  • BitLocker technology to encrypt the whole hard disk.
• From a deployment perspective, everything that we know about unattended installation (which hasn’t changed much since Windows NT) changes with new file-based imaging tools that allow for compressed images with single instance storage of multiple build versions and non-destructive rebuilds.
• Language support is handled via resource files (instead of multiple versions of the same DLL), allowing for creation of a singe worldwide operating system image.
• The new Windows imaging (.WIM) format allows images to be mounted as a file system, then browsed and edited.
• A new feature called Windows resource protection is provided to protect system settings. Meanwhile, the number of configuration items that can be controlled via group policy has increased from approximately 1800 to around 3000 (mostly control over printing, USB devices, and power management.
• For legacy application support, the program files folder structure and the registry are virtualised. This means that programs that need (or assume) administrator permissions can still run as they have a virtual registry to write to.
• The command prompt is also unprivileged by default, with the same user access control functionality as the GUI.
• The “breadcrumb trail” that replaces an absolute path in Explorer windows allows me to jump straight to a particular folder in the path.
• The ability to tag documents (including photos) and “stack” them based on the file metadata (e.g. view all documents by a particular author – although for many organisations the author will typically be something like “Any authorised user” or the company name because in my experience other people rarely set the document properties).
• Within control panel, a shield next to an applet indicates that user access control applies.
• The mobility center allows for quick application of different settings (e.g. turn of screensaver when presenting). There’s also easier file sharing with users on the same network and a new synchronisation engine for synchronising with mobile devices, or keeping files in sync with another PC (like backing up my work PC to a home file store).
• Tabbed browsing in IE7 (something which, as a Firefox user, I now find very difficult to do without in IE6), RSS support and preview pages.

Even though I’m unimpressed generally with Aero, there are some UI features that I may find useful:

Microsoft is caught between a rock and a hard place. They get criticised for a lack of original new features; but we accuse Windows of being bloated. They get criticised for a lack of security; on the other hand when they add new features (improved client firewall, anti-spyware, etc.) they are accused of being anti-competitive. Windows Vista has been a long time coming and whilst many of the features originally planned have since been removed it does include some great new technology.

Will Vista be worth the wait? Probably. Will corporates be keen to adopt the new operating system? That remains to be seen but I suspect there won’t be a big rush if the marketing message continues with the “clear, confident, connected, ooh – doesn’t it look pretty” message.

A couple of weeks back, I blogged about the imminent release of the next Windows Vista community technology preview (CTP). It turns out I was premature – my source obviously didn’t know about the x64 driver problems which delayed the release, but build 5308 is now available for registered beta testers to download from Microsoft Connect.

Interestingly, Microsoft still don’t seem to have written off the idea of a second beta, but the February CTP is feature complete. Quoting from the e-mail I received “This build is not beta quality but is being provided as a preview of our progress towards Beta 2. It should allow you to confirm the many bugs fixed since the last build and best of all, you can begin to explore the full Windows Vista feature set as we are now feature complete!”.

Thomas Lee‘s second session at the recent IT Forum ’05 highlights (part 2) event was a Windows Vista overview and roadmap. I blogged about Vista a few months back, based on a marketing-led presentation that I seen. Thomas’ slide deck was also marketing-led, but I was pleased to see that he only followed it loosely and talked about the technology instead. These were some of the points that jumped out for me:

• PC technology trends are shifting. 64-bit computing is finally going mainstream (the Longhorn server wave of products will be 64-bit only). At the same time, the x86 architecture is proliferating with new compact PCs (and even new Intel-based Apple Macs). Graphics processor improvements are exceeding Moore’s law (hence the reason for designing the operating system around graphical capabilities). Networking is increasingly wireless. Multi-core CPUs are now appearing on the market. Storage availability is rising, with a tremendous variety in flash-based devices. Memory is faster (and we’re using more of it). Flat-screen monitors are now the norm, getting larger (and drawing less power than their CRT-based counterparts). Windows Vista is designed to take advantage of all of these technology trends.
• Windows Vista has new some new/updated administrative tools including enhancements to computer management (the diagnostic console and reliability monitor) and a vastly improved event viewer (featuring many more logs, and an XML view).
• My recent post about opening multiple home pages in Firefox was thanks to Thomas highlighting this feature in Internet Explorer (IE) 7, along with tabbed browsing, RSS integration and a phishing filter which highlights suspect URLs in yellow and has a feedback mechanism so that often-reported sites show up with a red highlight). One item that I think is particularly cool is the Quick Tabs view with a thumbnail of each open browser tab.
• Control Panel got bigger (more granularity).
• Desktop search actually works.
• Fast user switching is available for domain-connected PCs and there is the new user access protection (UAP) functionality. For example, if I try to change the date/time (an incorrect time would be critical to Kerberos) on a Vista machine, UAP kicks in and prompts me before allowing the change. I’m going to try and run using an unprivileged account and switch users where I absolutely need to be an administrator. As Thomas put it, this is effectively helping out the naive without holding back advanced users.
• On the deployment side – forget everything you know about NT/2000/XP deployment. Windows Image (.WIM) files replace setup folders and there are new tools such as ximage to manipulate them.
• Although not deployed by default in Windows Vista, the Microsoft command shell (codenamed Monad) can be used to automate a variety of functions.

Windows Vista is a huge investment (both for Microsoft and for organisations upgrading from Windows 2000/XP). I have to agree with Thomas when he says that instead of concentrating on the negative (the current version is buggy, slow, and there is stuff missing), let’s remember that this is a beta product! I don’t really care about the new interface (I think many corporates will find this a burden both in terms of hardware requirements and end-user re-training) but there are a whole host of features that I can’t wait to get into production.

Whilst driving to work this morning, I heard a piece on Slashdot Review about how 50% of PCs will be prevented from running Windows Vista, citing problems with graphics capabilities and the Aero interface. Wrong. The operating system will run – just it will be without some of the new graphical features. I’m running the December CTP (build 5270) on a 2 year old 1.5GHz Pentium 4 Mobile notebook PC with 256MB of RAM. Granted, it’s not what you might call fast (a bit more RAM would fix that), but it runs. Whilst I may not have the Aero “glass” eye-candy, Vista is there, along with all its other features. If, however, I want high-end graphics, then I’ll have to upgrade my machine.

This afternoon, I heard the clearest indicator yet from someone close to Microsoft that the next Windows Vista community technology preview (CTP) release is imminent – it may even be made available as soon as tomorrow. Furthermore, as widely reported in the media, there will not be a second Windows Vista beta (there is already some confusion over this because earlier CTPs have included the magic words “beta 2” in places).

I commented a few months back that releasing a series of CTPs as well as the normal series of beta and release candidates would be too much to fit in – it remains to be seen whether there will be further CTPs (I would expect at least one more in April) or if Microsoft will move back to the traditional release candidate model.

Meanwhile, at least in public, Microsoft are sticking to their schedule of shipping Vista in the second half of 2006 – my gut feeling is that whilst RTM may well be achieved in 2006 general availability will not be until early 2007.

For a few days now, I’ve been struggling to get the December community technical preview (CTP) of Windows Vista installed on my notebook PC. I downloaded the DVD .ISO from Microsoft (twice, just to be sure my copy wasn’t in some way corrupt) and it booted fine, but setup.exe kept crashing – sometimes just before product key entry, sometimes just after (in any case it wouldn’t accept even a valid product key), with a variety of memory errors which reminded me of the old Windows 3.x unexpected application errors (UAEs).

I tried the raw disk workaround in the release notes (it’s great being able to access tools like diskpart during an installation) but it made no difference to my setup crashes so I submitted a bug report, but so far have heard nothing back. I couldn’t believe that I was alone with this problem and googling wasn’t doing much for me until I found HazardHawk’s reply to a post on Planet AMD 64:

“Build 5270 will not install if you download it and burn the ISO to disk no matter what program you use and the only way I have managed to get it running was to reinstall XP … from scratch, then install daemon tools and load the ISO to a virtual DVD”.

I’m using the 32-bit release (no 64-bit hardware here yet) and I didn’t use Daemon Tools, but I did use the Microsoft Virtual CD Control Panel to mount the ISO (it doesn’t matter that it’s a DVD ISO and the application is a virtual CD driver), after which I was able to run the installer from within Windows XP by just launching setup.exe.

The option to upgrade from Windows XP Professional was disabled, but that didn’t stop me from installing on the same disk partition – the Windows Vista installer moved my existing \Windows folder to \Windows.old. Like the previous builds I’ve tried (5219 and 5231), installation took a long time (just under 2 hours on my PC, which admittedly only has a 1.4GHz Pentium 4 M processor and 256MB of RAM), in this case even producing an interesting “installation is taking longer than expected, but should be finishing soon” message (after about an hour).

I have to agree with HazardHawk that not needing the DVD once the initial reboot has taken place is useful (this setup approach wouldn’t have worked otherwise) but Stretchboy’s following comment about using Nero to burn the ISO to DVD didn’t work for me (that’s what I’d been doing originally).

Now that I have the December CTP installed (which appears to be a huge improvement over earlier builds), I can go back to testing Windows Vista in earnest – I never felt comfortable with using earlier builds for anything other than transient data and it’s difficult to be an effective beta tester if you’re not using a system on a daily basis.

For many of us who work closely with Microsoft, product launch dates are often a bit of a lottery (and a closely guarded secret) but Microsoft EMEA have taken it all a step further by running a competition to guess the launch date for Windows Vista!

1st Prize is to attend the Vista launch event in the USA: a full package with entry, flight and 3 nights in a 4-star hotel. 2nd–4th prize winners will each receive a new Xbox 360. 5th–10th prize winners will receive an Xbox core system.

I’ve gone for 8th December 2006, but also have a feeling that date might be a bit late in the Microsoft product launch season (apparently there was some marketing science behind why SQL Server 2005, Visual Studio 2005 and BizTalk Server 2006 had to be launched in early November last year).

Find out more at the Windows Vista and Office “12” Beta Experience website.

Several months ago I installed Windows Vista Beta 1 (build 5112) on a spare laptop (slowly… as Vista installations tend to be…) but then didn’t get much time to use it (I’m still using XP on my everyday PCs). There are many good information sources on Vista out there (like Paul Thurrott’s Windows Vista Activity Center) – that’s hardly surprising with with 10,000 users testing Beta 1, but I thought I’d write a quick post about how Microsoft is positioning Windows Vista.

From an initial glimpse, I couldn’t see much (apart from the Microsoft support lifecycle) to compel corporations to upgrade from XP. Many of the new features seem to be aimed at consumers and I recently heard that a Gartner briefing note entitled “ten reasons you should and shouldn’t care about Microsoft’s Windows Vista client” recommended that there is little reason to move (and that even the security improvements can be plugged with third party products, or will be back-ported to XP); however on reflection, there may be some advantages for corporate users.

At a recent event, Microsoft were stressing that Beta 1 might look dull (from a visual perspective), but the focus was to establish robustness, reliability and security and then finish off the look and feel later (sounds very unlike Microsoft to me!). Also, there are no ROI/TCO/business value metrics yet as these will be produced after the product is feature complete (otherwise they could become redundant before release to manufacturing, e.g. if components are added or removed between builds).

According to the Microsoft marketing machine, the main benefits of Windows Vista are clustered around three areas, which I’ll expand upon in the following paragraphs:

• Confident.
• Clear.
• Connected.

Confidence is about four areas:

• Security and privacy:
  • User account protection (not using administrative rights and prompting users when an extra level of access is required).
  • Data protection (trusted platform module v1.2).
  • Secure browsing (anti-phishing filter in Internet Explorer 7 scans URLs for unusual patterns and compares them against a database of known phishing sites).
• Performance and reliability:
  • Fewer reboots and crashes (50% less than Windows XP; Vista and Office 12 patches save state before restarting).
  • Greater responsiveness (fast start combining the benefits of hibernation and standby).
• Deployment and servicing:
  • Single image format (XML-based WIM imaging with single instance storage and support for direct patching).
  • Improved application compatibility.
• Management:
  • Built-in diagnostics.
  • Power saving via group policy (allowing power savings of up to $40 per PC).
  • Unified event log (XML-based, which can be fed to a database for proactive monitoring).

Clarity is concerned with:

• Instant search:
  • Enterprise-ready integrated desktop search (in a form which is easier to manage in a corporate environment than the current offerings from MSN, Google and others).
• Smart organisation:
  • New virtual folders and views.
  • Filter-based column controls.
  • Robust metadata support.
• Visualisation:
  • Live icons and enhanced document previews.
  • Efficient window management (taskbar thumbnails, flip and flip 3D task switching, on which I’ll expand more below).
• User experience:
  • Scales with hardware (performance scaling to enable operating system features according to the installed hardware).
  • Stable desktop experience.
  • Familiar, but updated, streamlined experience (Microsoft claims to be aiming for users to be up and running with the new interface in less than 20 minutes).

Being connected is about:

• Networking:
  • Discover and join networks more easily.
  • Secure and reliable wireless networking.
  • Access to corporate applications without requirement for a VPN.
• Mobility:
  • Windows mobility centre.
  • Seamless wireless connection to external displays and projectors.
  • Hybrid hard drive support (“super-fetch” capabilities to pre-load common applications).
  • Tablet PC enhancements.
• Collaboration:
  • Face-to-face collaboration on shared networks.
  • Broadcast presentation and text files (e.g. across secure private encrypted networks).
  • Easy sharing of files and folders.
• Synchronisation:
  • Integrated synchronisation centre (allowing multiple vendors to synchronise devices through a common API).
  • Platform for mobile development.
  • More efficient data synchronisation.

From my own first experiences, and the product demonstration that I saw (using capable hardware), the much-hyped “glass” effect within the Aero interface is uninspiring but Microsoft are keen to emphasis that it will allow third parties to create software which can take advantage of this for a richer user experience; however business users may also benefit from the flip (Alt-Tab replacement) which shows a preview of each running application as it switches between them instead of just an icon and some text details (something similar is available for Windows XP as a PowerToy). This feature also works by presenting taskbar thumbnails within Vista as the user hovers over minimised applications. There is also the Flip 3D task switching, with overlapping windows in a 3-dimensional form. Many of these user interface items are reliant on the Windows graphics foundation (formerly codenamed Avalon) and a graphics card with around 64-128Mb RAM.

Overall, the Aero interface seems to be a mix of the Windows XP Luna interface with hints of Apple OS X and KDE. It’s a fine line to tread between plagiarism and a familiar user interface but personally I don’t like any of those big icons. The new control panel is an improvement over the Luna version but I still prefer the classic control panel.

Other interface changes include adding blue (XML query-based) virtual folders alongside the the traditional yellow folders. Document preview is enhanced, clearly exposing metadata and displaying the first page of a document in a similar manner to the current treatment of graphics files within Windows XP’s document preview features. Although these are all positive improvements, my general feeling was that the new interface was going to take some time to get used to.

Microsoft claim that search is also greatly enhanced, with desktop search across the file system, e-mail and offline server files and the ability to share filters (i.e. views on document searches). Maybe it is this desktop search capability that means there are some major changes to the file system layout – with some familiar folders and others less so (my machine still had a Documents and Settings folder structure with common application data, but also featured a new Users folder structure), meanwhile some of the old favourites are still there (namely autoexec.bat and config.sys). My brief experience with build 5112 searching was actually quite disappointing as the search only seemed to include user folders whereas shelling out to a command prompt and using an old-fashioned dir filename /s produced a different set of results.

When I installed build 5112, I thought it felt fast (even on a 1.4GHz Pentium 4 Mobile with 256GB of RAM) but that could have been down to a fresh Windows installation (rather than more efficient code). Other observations (made after a just a few minutes looking at Windows Vista) were that:

• As widely predicted, there is no more My prefix on documents, pictures, etc (good).
• Fast user switching is available in domain mode (very good).
• Desktop icons are huge (bad).
• There is a new Control-Alt-Delete dialog, without a domain selection field – possibly encouraging a move to UPNs, but entering the username as domainname\username also worked for me (okay).
• Checkboxes have a naff Windows 9x feel about them (bad).

So, when can we (finally) expect to see Windows Vista released? Microsoft is sticking to its 2006 release prediction, but is now saying that release to manufacturing (RTM) will be around Christmas 2006 (so that pushes general customer availability out into 2007). We’ve already seen pre-beta releases for the professional developers conference (PDC) in September 2003 and the Windows hardware engineering conference (WinHEC) in April 2004, before Beta 1 was finally released in July 2005.

Despite industry predictions to the contrary, the Microsoft representative that I spoke to insisted that there will be a second, more widely-available, Beta in January 2006, but there will also be community technical previews (CTPs) in December 2005, February 2006 and April 2006, as well as release candidates. Personally, I think this sounds like a lot of releases to manage and from which to solicit feedback – I’ll be surprised if some aren’t dropped from the schedule in order to hit that 2006 RTM date.