Microsoft has published Release Candidate 1 (RC1) of its latest desktop operating system, Windows Vista. There will be another Release Candidate, funnily enough called RC2 before it is finally released for all and sundry to buy. It should be finished sometime in November and will be on the shop shelves in January. The RC1 version has had very good initial reviews which is interesting given that reviews of the previous release, Beta 2 where not very complimentary to say the least. Which just goes to show that lots of people still do not understand what the beta process is all about in software development. This process is there to get the bugs out of the software before it is released, and only the developers really know what is going on and what needs to be done before the release. Only the developers see the big picture.
I bought a new computer and upgraded to the Vista pre RC1 version; then on Saturday upgraded to RC1. And it works. Not only does it work, but it works very well, and by the time Microsoft gets rid of any remaining wrinkles it will be great. The interface is as good as the best from Apple, in fact probably better. And you don't have to learn how to use a mouse with one button to enjoy it. The computer I used has an AMD Dual Core 3800 processor, 2 GB of memory and a 160 GB SATA hard disk. So it's not your average computer for a lot of buyers. But what I am doing is testing a setup for our developers except they will get an Intel Core 2 processor which at the moment are hard to get, and will not only run Vista but have the option to run another operating system on top of Microsoft Virtual PC (for testing purposes). So why should I buy it?
Memory Management - Microsoft has rewritten the memory management from Windows XP. At the moment if you open up five or six big programs under XP, it will hang. Well it does not hang, it just runs so slow you think it is not responding and has hung. You can not do this in Vista, it will tell you to shut one of the programs. I have seen it run six programs of over 1.2 GB each on a computer with 2 GB of ram; you could never do this on XP. If you get a blue screen (and I did on the pre-release RC1 version due to the DVD driver), Vista can rebuild the operating system with the correct file from a Virtual PC like partition. (Best way I can describe it).
Drivers - Beta 2 did not have a great many drivers but this has been fixed in RC1 and I am sure will be extended even further in the released version.
Performance - RC1 is pretty fast and snappy performance wise, it seems as fast as Windows XP. The boot-up and shutdown times are faster than XP. And I think a lot of people will try Vista's ReadyBoost option where you plug in a USB key and Vista uses it to cache frequently used files to. The built in search is very fast and lots of users will find that a simple feature like this which seems to work far better than any of the desktop search add ons from Google or Microsoft (because it is part of the operating system) will find it increases their productivity.
Mulitimedia - Vista supports a lot more devices now (digital cameras, MP3 players etc) and also has support built-in for High Definition DVD formats.
Security - this was a major priority for the Microsoft software developers with Vista. There have been a lot of changes, most of which are at such a deep level in the operating system that you will not see them working. There is a anti-Phishing filter in the new version of Internet Explorer (IE 7) which stops your personal details being scammed by the bad guys. It has the Microsoft Defender software built-in to stop malware infections and spyware. You are warned by pop-up messages before you run certain options ( User Access Control) which should make people stop and think what they are doing. Some people think this is an annoying part of Vista but all I would say is you cannot have it both ways. And it is no more annoying than the pop-ups that come up with any browser pop-up blocker, or with a software firewall like Zone Alarm.
So why should anyone upgrade to Vista?
Well, let me ask a question, "Do you want a more stable, better looking, just as fast (sometimes faster), more secure, more feature rich version of XP? If the answer is yes then either buy a new computer to use it on or reformat your existing computer and reload everything again from scratch.
Will all of your current software run on Vista, probably not but that's not Microsoft's problem, the answer lies with those software vendors. People need to realise there can be no progress without pain and are naive to believe that this.
Lets not turn reviews of Vista into a political or religious debate; it's better than XP, much better. Is it the ultimate desktop operating system? No, not unless it's the last desktop operating system anyone produces