Techies have been beta testing Microsoft's next client operating system, Windows Vista, for many months, but now that a public Beta 2 (the Customer Preview Edition) is available, interest in Vista is picking up more steam.

Some folks, however, would rather not rush in where angels fear to tread. Your system might not meet the minimum requirements. Or maybe you don't have virtual machine software and don't want to risk installing a dual-boot configuration on your main machine. Or perhaps you just want to know what's new in this next generation OS to help you decide where it's worth giving it a try. In this article, we'll show you some of the most interesting new features.

Interface makeover
The first and most obvious change is the look. Unlike the somewhat cartoonish style of the default XP interface (which I and most other tech people I know immediately changed back to the Classic theme), Vista has an elegant and sophisticated look that's reminiscent of (sorry, Microsoft, but it's true) Macintosh OS X. For those of us who love the Mac's good looks but prefer Windows' functionality, this is great news.

If your video card supports the Aero Glass interface, you get translucent title bars, cool animations and lots of eye candy, as shown in Figure A.

Figure A

The new Aero Glass interface

Note
When accessing the Vista desktop via Remote Desktop from a computer that doesn't have a high powered video card, you won't see the pretty transparent effect on your application windows even though the Vista computer itself displays them. At least, this was my experience with Beta 2.

Sidebar
The collection of items on the right side of the screen is the sidebar, which contains a set of gadgets of your choosing. Some choices include:

• Calculator that performs basic math functions.
• Analog clock (several designs to choose from).
• CPU and memory meters that let you keep an eye on the amount of system resources in use.
• Currency converter for quick international monetary calculations.
• Feed viewer for tracking news, sports, and entertainment headlines via RSS.
• Feed watcher for monitoring your selected RSS feeds.
• Notepad for quickly jotting reminders or bits of info you need to keep.
• Slide show applet that displays a continuous slide show of the photos in your Pictures folder.
• Stocks ticker that lets you track trading prices and see charts for your selected stocks.
• Countdown timer for alerting you when a specified interval has passed.
• Number and picture puzzles.
• Recycle bin.
• Games.

In addition to the gadgets available from within Vista, you can get more sidebar gadgets online at http://gallery.microsoft.com/.

Taskbar
At first glance, the taskbar looks similar to XP's, albeit with a classy black metallic finish and round start button. The quick launch bar, open apps section, and system tray are all in the usual places. But you get a surprise when you hover over an open application icon: A preview of that window pops up, as shown in Figure B. And if there are multiple instances of that application, you'll see a whole stack of preview pages.

Figure B

Hovering over an open window icon on the taskbar pops up a preview of the window.

Start menu
The Start menu hasn't changed much. You can still pin your favourites to the top-left side, and the right side still contains commonly used items such as Documents, Pictures and Music, Computer, Network and Control Panel, Search, and Help. If you want to restart, switch users, or put the system to sleep, you'll need to click the small arrow by the Shut Down and Lock buttons, as shown in Figure C.

Figure C

Changes to the Start menu are more subtle.

You'll notice a few new built-in programs on the Start menu. These include Windows Mail (replacement for Outlook Express), Windows Contacts (new address book), and Windows Calendar. No, Vista doesn't quite give you all the functionality of "big Outlook." But it does provide enough personal information management (PIM) functionality out of the box for most home users and many small business users, in some cases eliminating the need to purchase Outlook.

Windows Mail
Windows Mail is more robust than OE. I was impressed with the Account Setup wizard. I entered the information for my Exchange server, and WM immediately began downloading my mailboxes. It took only a minute or two to configure and there were all my Exchange folders. They're displayed in the left folder tree along with the Local folders, as shown in Figure D. As with Outlook 2003, you can place the preview pane either at the bottom or on the right side.

Figure D

Windows Mail displays your Exchange folders along with local folders.

The Instant Search function (which also appears in Outlook 2007 and is available throughout Vista lets you quickly search through thousands of messages. Along with the junk mail filters familiar to OE users, Windows Mail includes a phishing filter to help you identify fraudulent Web site links. Like OE, Windows Mail also serves as a newsgroup reader.

Best of all, according to Microsoft, Windows Mail users will no longer have to contend with the problems that OE users encountered if their saved e-mail files grew large.

Windows Contacts
The Windows Address Book in XP has been replaced by Windows Contacts. The Contacts feature does everything the old Address Book did and more. For example, you can add photos to your contacts, as shown in Figure E.

Figure E

Windows Contacts allows you to view photos of your contacts.

When you upgrade from XP, the contents of your address book is automatically converted to .contact files and stored in the Vista Contacts folder. Or you can import Windows Address Book (.wab) files from another computer. You can also import contacts stored in the following file formats:

• CSV (comma-separated values)
• LDAP (Light Directory Access Protocol-based directory servers
• VCF (vCard)

Windows Calendar
While XP has e-mail and contact functionality, it lacks a built-in calendaring solution. Vista solves that problem with the Windows Calendar. Although not a replacement for the Outlook calendar, it provides good, basic appointment and event scheduling that you can view in a daily, weekly, or monthly layout, as shown in Figure F.

Figure F

The Windows Calendar is a brand new feature for Vista.

The Calendar also includes a Task list and allows you to set reminders as much as two weeks or as little as five minutes prior to a scheduled appointment. You can set recurring appointments, and you can have multiple calendars on one PC and share your calendar with others -- on the local computer or across the Internet.

Windows Calendar supports the iCalendar format, so you can export your calendar to a Web site and allow others to subscribe to it, and you can subscribe to the calendars of others and view them alongside your own. You can also easily invite participants to meetings.

Unlike Outlook's calendar, though, Windows Calendar isn't integrated into the e-mail client, and the calendar and task information aren't stored on your Exchange server.

More new programs
Vista includes the Windows Photo Gallery, which helps you organise and view your digital photos and videos more easily. You can even do rudimentary photo editing and print them from within the gallery, which replaces the Windows Picture and Fax Viewer in XP and gives you much more flexibility in improving your photos. Unlike the Picture and Fax Viewer, Photo Gallery lets you adjust exposure and color, crop pictures, and quickly fix "red eye," as shown in Figure G.

And if you get carried away with your editing, don't worry: There's an Undo button and a Revert to Original Selection option.

Figure G

The Vista Photo Gallery gives you basic editing capabilities.

Like XP, Vista includes Windows Movie Maker, but with some enhancements. The DVD Maker makes it easy to burn your movies to disc, and you can create chapters and menus that let you jump to specific scenes. You also have more control over the quality and size of your video files.

Vista includes several new games, such as Inkball, Purble Place, and Chess Titans, a 3D chess game that's great for learning how to play.

Vista Home Premium and Vista Ultimate editions also include the Windows Media Center application that's based on the Windows XP Media Center Edition. In Vista, it has a spiffy new, more sophisticated look, as shown in Figure H.

Figure H

Media Center is included in Vista Home Premium and Ultimate Editions.

With Media Center, you can organise and view DVD movies, home videos, digital music, digital photos, and recorded or live TV within an easy-to-use interface. You can hook up the computer to a widescreen TV and use a Media Center remote control to do all this -- and surf the Web, check your e-mail, and run other applications -- from your living room sofa.

Most editions of Vista include Windows Media Player 11, which has a new look and feel and a redesigned media library that's easier to navigate.

Security, Security, Security
All this bling is cool and exciting, but one of the primary reasons for Vista's existence is to provide Windows users with a more secure operating system.

Vista delivers better security in a number of ways, including (but not limited to):

• The new IE 7 browser offers a protected mode to keep malicious software (malware) or Web sites from changing configuration settings.
• Windows Service Hardening keeps OS services from making changes to the registry, file system, etc., without your permission.
• Windows Firewall now controls outbound traffic as well as inbound; firewall settings can be controlled via Group Policy.
• User Account Control does away with the need to run as an administrator for everyday tasks and prevents standard users from making dangerous changes to settings or running potentially harmful executable programs.
• Remote Desktop can now be configured to require Network Level Authentication for better security on RDP sessions.
• Smart cards are easier to deploy.
• The Network Access Protection (NAP) agent is included in Vista and prevents Vista clients from connecting to your network if they don't have the proper security updates, virus signatures, and other criteria.
• BitLocker is a new feature that can encrypt the entire system volume, including Windows system files and the hibernation file, to protect from offline attacks if a machine is physically accessed (such as a stolen laptop).

Usability
I first installed the public Vista beta on a Dell Dimension with a 3.0 GHz processor and 4 GB of RAM. The installation went smoothly for the most part. (You can read details of the experience at http://www.wxpnews.com/archives/wxpnews-231-20060613.htm.) So far, I've found it easy to work with, other than a few minor bugs. For example, it won't allow me to change the picture associated with my user account, and a few of my standard applications wouldn't install at first -- until I learnt the secret.

Vista compatibility mode
After trying several times to install CorelDraw, I discovered Vista compatibility mode. If an application won't install or (as Corel did) won't open or work properly after you install it, try this: Go to the application's executable file and right-click on it. Select Properties and click the Compatibility tab. As shown in Figure I, as with XP you can choose to run the program in compatibility mode for a previous version of Windows (Windows XP SP2, Server 2003 SP1, or even Windows 2000, NT, or 9x). Unlike with XP, there is also a check box to run the application as an administrator. Checking that box caused Corel to work.

Figure I

Vista compatibility mode gives you the option to run the program as an administrator.

Windows Explorer
The Windows Explorer interface doesn't look that different at first glance, but then you notice the subtle changes that make it easier to navigate the file system. For instance, as you scroll down the folder tree in the left pane, and expanded items go farther to the right, the window automatically scrolls horizontally to keep them in view.

Or how about the new clickable path displayed in the top location bar? Instead of having to click half a dozen times on the Up button, you can go directly to any folder in the hierarchy above the one you're in simply by clicking its name there.

And you don't have to be in the Thumbnails view now to see a preview of your graphics files. As shown in Figure J, even in Details view the icons present a tiny thumbnail of your pictures.

Figure J

There are many subtle changes that make Windows Explorer easier to use.

There are many changes to Explorer that make a computer user's life easier. For a more detailed look, see "More than just a pretty interface: File management with Vista Explorer."

Summary
The new Vista interface is great to look at, but it also adds a lot of functionality, in both obvious and not-so-obvious ways. Sure, there are some annoyances. The constant popping up of the User Account Control dialog box (shown in Figure K) each time you want to install a program or do anything else that requires administrative privileges gets tiresome (but there is a way to turn it off). And you may have trouble finding the Run command at first (it's in the Programs | Accessories menu, but I quickly made a shortcut to it on my Quick Launch bar). Despite these minor issues, working in Vista is a pleasant experience -- and a more secure one.

Figure K

You'll become intimately familiar with the UAC dialog box if you install many new programs.

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