Windows Vista

The next version of Windows finally has an official name: Windows Vista.The advertising tagline for Vista is "Clear, Confident, Connected: Bringing clarity to your world," The first beta, or test release, of Vista is slated for release by Aug. 3. That release will be targeted at developers and IT professionals.Microsoft has promised that Vista will be widely available on computers for the 2006 holiday buying season. A beta, or test, version is planned for release on August 3. The server version is slated for 2007.Vista--what used to be called Longhorn--has evolved quite a bit since Microsoft first demonstrated an early version in 2003. The company has dropped plans to include its all-new WinFS file system and has also changed the way it's implementing a new Web services architecture, known as Indigo, and a new graphics engine, dubbed Avalon. Among the key features of Vista as it currently stands are: security enhancements, a new searching mechanism, lots of new laptop features, parental controls and better home networking. There will also be visual changes, thanks to Avalon, ranging from shiny translucent windows to icons that are tiny representations of a document itself. The other features broad IPv6 support, improved client-side caching of data stored on a server, whole-volume encryption, a revamped synchronization engine, the ability to support laptops with an auxiliary display, automatic hard drive optimization and a secure boot-up process that helps prevent someone from gaining access to your data if your PC is lost or stolen. There's also probably a ton of stuff we haven't heard about yet. Everything is not final.Microsoft said in an April interview that he expects Vista will need about 512MB of memory and "today's level" of processor. The ability to display all the fancy new graphics will depend on what type of graphics card one has. On some older machines, the graphics may look similar to today's Windows. from cnet news http://news.com.com/2100-1008_3-5189453.html