Windows Vista Product Overview for IT Professionals

Posted on By Mark Wilson
This content is 19 years old. I don't routinely update old blog posts as they are only intended to represent a view at a particular point in time. Please be warned that the information here may be out of date.

Although I have Windows Vista beta 1 installed on one of my computers, I haven’t spent as much time looking at it as I would like to (although I will say that I don’t think much of the new Aero interface – it all feels a bit too much like the Linux KDE desktop to me – but I guess many people I know don’t like the Windows XP Lunar interface and elect to run in classic mode so maybe I’m just turning into a dinosaur too…).

For those who don’t have access to the beta, or just anyone who wants an overview of what Windows Vista should bring us next year, Microsoft have a Windows Vista product overview for IT professionals on their website.

Office Vista?

Posted on By Mark Wilson
This content is 19 years old. I don't routinely update old blog posts as they are only intended to represent a view at a particular point in time. Please be warned that the information here may be out of date.

I just stumbled across a comment in one of Paul Thurrott’s Windows IT Pro magazine network WinInfo Daily Updates from a few weeks back that the next version of Microsoft Office (Office 12) might be called “Microsoft Office Vista”. If that does happen, I think it would be a really bad idea…

To put it simply, consumers (and business end-users) get confused about what software they use. That makes life harder for people like me. Whenever I start working with a new organisation I often am amazed to find how many names a single critical line-of-business application might be known by and I’ve lost count of the number of times people have tried to tell me that they use Windows 97 or Office 98 (I know that there was an Office 98 – but that was for the Macintosh).

The last time Microsoft released a version of Office which included part of the operating system name in its product name (Office XP), consumers (and senior IT management – the non-technical ones) got confused and thought that Office XP was somehow linked to Windows XP (as far as I’m aware there are no such constraints). Similarly, I understand that Office Vista will be supported on both Windows XP and Windows Vista so any Office product name including the Vista moniker could be confusing.

Personally I liked the old system of using numbers to describe products (the one that works well for the competition too) and think it should be the “Microsoft Office System, version 12” (well, version 11 really because I seem to recall that the version numbers jumped from 4.3 to 6 a few years back as part of a game of “version number catchup”, but that’s too long ago to bother about now…). What about calling Windows Vista “Microsoft Windows, version 6”?

Bad timing…

Posted on By Mark Wilson
This content is 19 years old. I don't routinely update old blog posts as they are only intended to represent a view at a particular point in time. Please be warned that the information here may be out of date.

For the last couple of days, the Microsoft File Transfer Manager has been running on one of my PCs, downloading 5.33Gb of Windows code name “Longhorn” and IE7 beta software from Microsoft Connect (averaging out at about 65kbps). Sometime last night, it all finally completed but then a few minutes ago, DHL delivered a package from Microsoft in Redmond containing… you guessed it… bootable DVDs of Windows Vista Professional Beta 1 and Windows Code Name “Longhorn” Beta 1. Arghhhhh!!!

Windows Vista only a replacement for XP – Windows Server is still codenamed Longhorn

Posted on By Mark Wilson
This content is 19 years old. I don't routinely update old blog posts as they are only intended to represent a view at a particular point in time. Please be warned that the information here may be out of date.

A few days back, I commented on Microsoft’s announcement of Windows Vista (formerly codenamed Longhorn), speculating as to whether this new name included the next generation Windows server product. It seems not, at least according to the Microsoft Windows Vista Beta 1 fact sheet.

I’m one of the 10,000 beta testers for Windows Vista (not a particularly exclusive club I know…) as well as Longhorn Server and Internet Explorer 7 so I guess I’ll blog some more about Vista after I’ve used it for a while – in the meantime Paul Thurrott has a Vista FAQ on his SuperSite for Windows.

Announcing Windows Vista

Posted on By Mark Wilson
This content is 19 years old. I don't routinely update old blog posts as they are only intended to represent a view at a particular point in time. Please be warned that the information here may be out of date.

Microsoft have announced the name for the next version of Windows (formerly codenamed Longhorn) – Windows Vista.

Windows VistaI’m not overly impressed with the name (how about Windows 2006?) but looks like they are going with it. What’s not clear is whether this is just the client version, or the next Windows server release too. Perhaps I’ll find out more when I finally get access to the beta in a couple of weeks time.

A chance to provide input to some networking features that Microsoft is considering for Windows Longhorn

Posted on By Mark Wilson
This content is 20 years old. I don't routinely update old blog posts as they are only intended to represent a view at a particular point in time. Please be warned that the information here may be out of date.

Michael Surkan, Microsoft’s Program Manager for Networking and Devices, has asked me to post a link to his survey to gain customer input on some networking features Microsoft is considering in the next version of Windows (codenamed Longhorn):

“The Microsoft network product team is investigating ways of resolving peer-to-peer connectivity problems in Longhorn, and we would like to get customer feedback to help validate some of the design proposals.

Today, there are many situations where users are unable to run such functions as remote assistance, voice/video conversations, and many other peer-to-peer functions because of firewalls, NATs and other network configuration problems. Our goal is to build networking technology into the operating system that will overcome many of these problems, allowing these peer-to-peer scenarios to ‘just work’.

This survey outlines some of the proposals for resolving these connectivity problems, and asks for feedback on them. We would love to get the opinions from a wide range of users, and markets (e.g. consumers, large IT departments, etc) since this would have implications for everyone.”

Enhanced search capabilities for Outlook and the Desktop

Posted on By Mark Wilson
This content is 20 years old. I don't routinely update old blog posts as they are only intended to represent a view at a particular point in time. Please be warned that the information here may be out of date.

The fact that Microsoft, Yahoo! and Google are all looking to grow (or retain) their share of the search market and to extend this to the desktop is no secret. Unfortunately for Microsoft the the next Windows release (codenamed Longhorn) is constantly being delayed and as one of its primary aims is to improve the search capabilities available natively within the operating system, this gives Google and others an opportunity to take a hold on the desktop (although Google will need to be smart in order to maintain it’s lead in the Internet search engine market – whether the launch of the rumoured Mozilla-based Google browser will help with this is yet to be seen).

Back in July 2004, Microsoft purchased an ISV called Lookout Software. Lookout is an add-on to Microsoft Outlook that allows users to bypass the search tools provided by Microsoft and sift through e-mail, contacts and other information with keywords. The latest version of Lookout is now available from the Microsoft website and my first impressions are that it is very good, and very fast (is it only me that thinks the Lookout branding looks a bit like Google’s?).

On a related note, Copernic, another successful player in the search market, released their Desktop Search product this month – again, my first impressions using this are good.

Links

Lookout and Microsoft questions and answers
Outlook is a platform
Rumours surround Google browser
Google browser may be reality