Why You Want Vista Now!

Microsoft Windows Vista, the long-awaited and long-delayed successor to Windows XP, is still in the beta-testing stages. Until recently, Microsoft held firm to a release date in the second half of this year. (And let's be candid: When Microsoft uses a vague term like "second half," that sure doesn't mean July). But then, on March 21, the company announced that though Vista would be available to businesses in November, consumers would have to wait until January 2007. So why would you want Vista now, when the product is likely six to nine months away from shipping?

Two words: More fun. Like a new car, Vista practically begs you to play with all its shiny new gadgets, see how hard you can drive it, and luxuriate in the novelty of the experience.


We admit that's not the most rational justification. Fair enough. There are plenty of down-to-earth reasons Vista is appealing. Improved security, for one. Dramatic improvements in tools that can help you cope with information overload, for another. Better support for multimedia and mobile devices, a better version of Internet Explorer, and a dramatically revamped UI, to name a few more. If Vista delivers on all its promises, you'll spend much less time performing tedious maintenance and configuration tasks and much more time being productive—or just keeping yourself entertained.

If you're an übergeek, you'll want to try Vista so you can retain your reputation of staying on the bleeding edge. If you're a developer, you'll want to see how Vista offers the opportunity to write compelling new applications. If you're an IT manager, you need to start thinking about how you'll eventually introduce Vista into your organization and manage migration and training. At PC Magazine, we've been diving deeper into Vista with each new CTP (Community Technology Preview), uncovering useful little secrets and powerful new capabilities, excitedly sharing our discoveries with each other—and now with you.

In February, Microsoft released a version of Vista that it calls "feature complete"—that is, including all the basic functions that will be in the final product. That CTP was available only to select beta testers and members of MSDN (Microsoft Developer Network) and Microsoft TechNet. Soon after you read this, we expect Microsoft to release a consumer-oriented CTP that anyone should be able to get their hands on. As we go to press, Microsoft hasn't said how that public CTP will be distributed, but as soon as that information is released, we'll have it at go.pcmag.com/vista with the rest of our ongoing coverage.

Make no mistake: We're not advocating that you urge Uncle Jim—or whoever calls you for help after his system has ground to a halt because he's installed too many adware-laden screensavers—to start working with Vista today. Nor would we recommend installing Vista on a production system where incompatibilities, crashes, or data loss would prove catastrophic. Betas are by definition unfinished products, and our experience with Vista has been far from seamless—it can be slow, crash unpredictably, refuse to work with various hardware, cause glitches in a variety of software, and generally be a hassle. (And yes, we can hear the more cynical among you grumbling about how that doesn't sound any different from any other Microsoft OS, but we disagree; if you've kept Windows XP patched and up to date, your computing should be pretty predictable.) But if you've got a spare machine around and are comfortable living on the edge in exchange for a little excitement, then get your hands on Vista now.

Because It's Cool
Install it and your jaw will drop. The Vista GUI is so slick, so cleverly put together, that it may even impress a few Mac users. Unlike Windows XP, which had a "new" look and feel that seemed like the same ol' same ol', Vista takes you to a different world. Tiny widgets hover in the corner. Translucent windows flit to and fro like Disney characters. The Start Menu is actually easy to use. Not since the summer of '95 has the Windows interface taken such a giant leap forward.

Vista Secrets
Vista includes speech recognition for both entering text and executing Windows commands. Get started in the Control Panel's Speech Recognition applet.
There are six Vista variants: For the home, Home Basic, Home Premium, and Ultimate; for businesses, Business and Enterprise; and for emerging markets, Starter.

For a Better Internet Experience
Another reason you'll want to try Vista now is that it offers an improved Internet experience—at least compared with the one you get with a vanilla version of Windows XP. Vista includes Internet Explorer 7, a revised version of Outlook Express called Windows Mail, and a unified RSS store.

Let's start with IE7, since Web browsing is what most users associate most strongly with the Internet. Microsoft has packed quite a few new capabilities into IE7—capabilities that are new to IE anyway, though many may seem ho-hum to Firefox and Opera users: tabbed browsing and a streamlined menu bar, antiphishing and antispoofing capabilities, an integrated RSS reader, improved printing support, and features for Web developers.

I'm pleased with the way IE is shaping up, but I can't help saying: It's about time. Microsoft released IE6 in 2001, and aside from some hotfixes and service packs—admittedly with important features such as a pop-up blocker and a better UI, to help protect naïve users against dangerous downloads—the company's browser development had languished.

I long ago stopped using IE as my primary ­browser because it lacked tabs, but IE7 just might win me back. If you've somehow missed out on the tabbed-browsing revolution, IE7 might give you the shove you need. Tabbed browsing lets you keep a number of Web pages open within a single browser window, using tabs to select among them. To open a link in a new tab, you can click the center mouse button (or the wheel, depending on your mouse configuration), hold the Control key while you click a link, or right-click a link and choose Open in New Tab. IE7 always keeps a blank tab open, so you can simply click it and enter a new URL. I'm psyched that tabs have finally arrived, but most of this was already available in other browsers—even in IE6 if you added the MSN Search Toolbar. But IE7 does add one unique feature, a useful "quick tabs" view that shows thumbnails of all the Web pages you have open in different tabs.

IE7 includes a Web-search box at the top right corner—it uses MSN search by default, but you can easily select a different search engine. I'm disappointed, though, that the browser can't perform incremental search (aka search-as-you-type or word-wheel search) within a Web page, an unfortunate shortcoming considering how extensively Vista emphasizes this capability elsewhere—and that other browsers have been doing it for some time.

IE7 also offers simplified menus and adds welcome conveniences such as shrink-to-fit printing, which helps ensure that you don't cut off the right-hand side of wide pages. For Web developers, IE7 includes improved support for CSS (Cascading Style Sheets) fixed positioning and for alpha-­channel transparency in PNG (Portable Network Graphics) images, which lets images on Web pages be partially transparent.

Then there's RSS—Really Simple Syndication, a technology that serious Web surfers have come to rely on for delivering regular streams of updated information, the Internet equivalent of newspaper headlines or TV-news crawls. IE7 automatically discovers RSS feeds on pages you visit and lets you view and subscribe to those feeds. But RSS support isn't limited to IE; Vista itself provides unified RSS storage, so all applications (with suitable work on the part of developers) can share a single set of RSS content. You can see this in action in the simple RSS headline component for Vista's Sidebar, which automatically picks up feeds you add in the browser.

IE7 takes steps forward in security as well, which we enumerate in the section "Because You Need Better Security".

If you use Outlook Express for your e-mail, you'll find Vista's Windows Mail client—a tweaked version of Outlook Express—offers some advantages as well. For starters, you've got to try the incremental search: Start typing in the search box and watch as your e-mail morass gets rapidly whittled down. (Too bad Outlook itself can't do this yet.) Windows Mail also includes spam and phishing filters like those in Outlook. And despite its name, Windows Mail still serves as a newsgroup reader as well; in fact, it includes a link to Microsoft Help newsgroups by default.

Windows Mail stores its data differently from Outlook Express, using a combination of Vista's file system and built-in Jet database engine, which Microsoft claims will make for more bulletproof storage. And here's something really cool we found: Windows Mail stores contacts right in the file system, so you can view and sort your contacts, or send them e-mail, from directly within the shell.

I might not consider any one of Vista's Internet-related features compelling by itself, especially given how many of them are just a download away if you're using Windows XP. But put them together and Vista makes using the Internet a bit safer, more productive, and more enjoyable.

Vista Secret
Feeling some trepidation about installing the beta? Make Vista coexist with your existing OS: You can install it on a separate partition (we recommend PartitionMagic, www.partitionmagic.com), or install it on a virtual machine by using Microsoft Virtual PC ( www.microsoft.com/virtualpc) or VMware Workstation ( www.vmware.com).


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