Theres an article at Dennis Forbes’ site about Vista power consumption when using the new Aero Glass skin :
One of the major new features of Windows Vista is the Aero Glass experience (both as an API for applications, and the shell itself). Aero Glass in essence turns your desktop into a video game: Instead of the current model where the GDI draws on a 2D palette, updating the video card memory (making using of acceleration routines that the video card supports) only when changes occur, the model of Aero Glass is that of a traditional game: With every “frame” the scene is wiped clean and re-rendered from scratch, layering “textures” that represent application canvases on onto 3-D polygons and building the user experience from there.
This system will attempt to push 60-90FPS of user experience goodness through your video card.
In many cases this will max out even high end video cards. Even where it doesn’t, all of the shaders and T&L engines on the video card are engaged - the additional power consumption will be considerable.
23.Nov.05 
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Some shots of the installation of build 5231 have been leaked onto the net :
23.Nov.05 Screenshots Read more Comments (0)
Speculation is circulating around the ‘Net as to which particular PCs will be able to run Windows Vista. Word is that each system’s graphics card will determine how smoothly Vista will move. The operating system will be shipping with four different themes, ranging from Classic XP to Aero Glass, with each theme demanding more graphical horsepower. Aero Glass will be the most intense.
Currently, Microsoft is stating that those who wish to push the capabilities of Vista have the following setup:
* DirectX 9 framework
* Windows Display Driver Model
* 32 bits per pixel depth with 64MB of graphics RAM
* 2.4GHz processor
* 512MB RAM
* Graphics card capable of handling Windows Presentation Foundation
Taken from arstechnica.com
17.Nov.05 General Read more Comments (0)
For people with access to the Vista betas through MSDN, there is an installation guide over at installvista.com :
Windows Vista Installation Guide
The follow installation guide is for Beta 1 ( Build 5112 ) of Windows Vista.
Pre-Setup
# Download the 2.42 GB .ISO available through MSDN.
# Mount the image, also known as the .ISO file, to a DVD disc.
# Alternatively, you can use Daemon Tools to mount the image to a virtual drive. *Not Recommended
# Insert the DVD disc into your CD-Rom drive and restart your computer.
# Hold the key F8 while your computer is booting. You will be prompted with a screen that allows you to choose a device to boot from. Using your arrow keys, select your CD-Rom drive.
Setup
# Windows will then load files and prepare for the setup.
# You should see a screen that gives you 3 options: Install now, View the release notes for Beta 1, and Repair problems with Windows startup.
# Click on Install now or press “I”.
# You will then be prompted with a screen that says in a large font: “Install Windows”. Click next.
# Enter your product key and click next.
# Read the License Terms and then click the circle that says “I accept the License Terms”. Click next.
# The only option at this point is to click custom, the upgrade option has been disabled for this build.
# This screen allows you to choose where you want Windows Vista to be installed and what your computer will be named. Click the current computer name, LH-*************, and enter what you would like your computer to be named. Click “Click here to select where to install Windows”. The screen will display your hard drives and their partitions. You will need to install Windows Vista on an empty partition. Please note that the partitions will not be the exact same size in megabytes as the hard drives. Click next to proceed with the setup.
# You will now see a screen that says “Windows is installing…”. Eventually, your computer will restart and the screen will now display “Completing installation…”.
01.Nov.05 General Read more Comments (0)
Theres a review of IE7 over at ZDNET.
Over all it seems a big improvement over the sloppy current release and previous incarnations. A lot of this, I put down to the increasing market share of Firefox, my current browser of choice.
Some of the new features include :
Extreme makeover
The toolbar and address bar areas of Internet Explorer 7 for Windows Vista have been totally redesigned. The address bar is now locked at the top of the window so that hijackers can’t replace it with phishing or spyware substitutes. Words have been eliminated in favour of iconic buttons so that only the bare essentials are displayed. In all, it’s a very clean and sophisticated look for an Internet browser.
Zoom, zoom, zoom
As you already can with Opera 8, Microsoft, Internet Explorer 7 for Windows Vista will allow you to zoom in on text and photos within a given Web page. By hitting Ctrl+ or Ctrl-, you can adjust the size of any Web page. This is great for people with disabilities.
Goodbye messy toolbar add-ons
In its desire to eliminate clutter, the new Internet Explorer does away with toolbars for the most popular search engines by integrating search engines from AOL Search, Ask Jeeves, Google, MSN Search and Yahoo Search directly into the browser. Of course, FireFox already allows you to do so.
Full review here.
Web designers have been cursing microsoft for years, expecially those using css to build sites as all the previous IEs have included a fundamental bug in the way they display css - resulting in a lot of extra hacks being put in the code to cater for ie users. Hopefully this will be fixed in the new version, this may be not be a blessing though as the old versions will still have to be catered for - it could end up being more of a nightmare, we’ll have to wait and see.
01.Nov.05 Reviews Read more Comments (0)
There is a review of the new Windows Media Center over at CoolTechZone which describes it as :
It’s so confusing; it would render even the computing enthusiasts frustrated. There is a new scrolling menu, thanks to the abundance of options that you don’t need. Compare this to the Front Row launched by Apple a few days ago at its famous “One More Thing….” press conference. Now that is simplicity, and the previous Windows MCE beat Apple to that. Of course someone at Microsoft was not delighted in making things easier and hired the best brains to figure out the most complicated way of listening to and watching music/videos/movies. We must say the developers accomplished just that by disguising everything under the hood of more choices. If you have ever driven an M5, you know that more choices are not always better, and forced choices are the worst.”
Once you have gotten over the initial shock, you calm down and decide to give it a spin (after a lot of “easy customizations” using “wizards”). Although the interface is responsive and very smooth, it’s a painstaking task to get to the options of your choice. The menus, sub-menus and sub-sub-menus are just as cumbersome as the rest of the interface.”
Oh dear, doesn’t sound great but we have to remember that its still in Beta so a lot could change between now and launch date.
28.Oct.05 Reviews Read more Comments (0)
According to HotFix, A microsoft employee has revealed that he is currently running Vista build 5247 :
An official Microsoft employee blog today revealed that Windows Vista build 5247 is currently in testing internally. Kevin Remde, a TechNet and MS Blogger, admitted today on his blog just in a passing comment that his build was 5247. The Hotfix has sent an e-mail to Kevin asking for screenshots of the build or any additional information, but the chances of him replying a about zero percent considering it would violate his NDA with Microsoft. Either way, it’s interesting to hear what build they are at from time to time. Here’s the quote:
“I’m currently playing with 5247. What build are you running?”
The current build out to Beta testers and MSDN subscribers is build 5231.
Read the story here.
26.Oct.05 News Read more Comments (0)
To help vendors get in early in preparation for the Christmas season, Vista is due to be released to them on July 25, 2006 according to sources familiar with Microsoft’s plans. The operating system wont be on sale to the public though till late 2006.
A new beta version of Windows Vista is due on December 16, 2005.
26.Oct.05 News Read more Comments (0)
An exclusive wallpaper made for allvistaworld.com :
Click image for full size wallpaper
24.Oct.05 Wallpapers Read more Comments (0)
Here’s a video demonstrating the Vista sidebar and windows gadgets
Sidebar lives!
But it’s even better, here Sean Alexander, David Streams, and special guest Sanaz Ahari of the Start.com team, demonstrate the new sidebar and gadgets that come in Windows Vista. Plus, we cover the three different kinds of gadgets and show how to build your own.
Watch the video on Channel 9
24.Oct.05 Downloads Read more Comments (0)
