- Windows Aero: The new hardware-based graphical user interface, named Windows Aero – an acronym for Authentic, Energetic, Reflective, and Open. The new interface is intended to be cleaner and more aesthetically pleasing than those of previous Windows, including new transparencies, live thumbnails, live icons, animations and eye candy.
- Windows Shell: The new Windows shell is significantly different from Windows XP, offering a new range of organization, navigation, and search capabilities. Windows Explorer's task panel has been removed, integrating the relevant task options into the toolbar. A "Favorite links" panel has been added, enabling one-click access to common directories. The address bar has been replaced with a breadcrumb navigation system. The preview panel allows users to see thumbnails of various files and view the contents of documents. The details panel shows information such as file size and type, and allows viewing and editing of embedded tags in supported file formats. The Start menu has changed as well; it no longer uses ever-expanding boxes when navigating through Programs. The word "Start" itself has been removed in favor of a blue Windows Orb (also called "Pearl").
- Instant Search (also known as search as you type): Windows Vista features a new way of searching called Instant Search, which is significantly faster and in-depth(content-based) than that of the search features found in any of the previous versions of Windows.[8]
- Windows Sidebar: A transparent panel anchored to the side of the screen where a user can place Desktop Gadgets, which are small applets designed for a specialized purpose (such as displaying the weather or sports scores). Gadgets can also be placed on other parts of the desktop.
- Windows Internet Explorer 7: New user interface, tabbed browsing, RSS, a search box, improved printing,[9] Page Zoom, Quick Tabs (thumbnails of all open tabs), Anti-Phishing filter, a number of new security protection features, Internationalized Domain Name support (IDN), and improved web standards support. IE7 in Windows Vista runs in isolation from other applications in the operating system (protected mode); exploits and malicious software are restricted from writing to any location beyond Temporary Internet Files without explicit user consent.
- Windows Media Player 11, a major revamp of Microsoft's program for playing and organizing music and video. New features in this version include word wheeling (or "search as you type"), a new GUI for the media library, photo display and organization, the ability to share music libraries over a network with other Vista machines, Xbox 360 integration, and support for other Media Center Extenders.
- Backup and Restore Center: Includes a backup and restore application that gives users the ability to schedule periodic backups of files on their computer, as well as recovery from previous backups. Backups are incremental, storing only the changes each time, minimizing the disk usage. It also features Complete PC Backup (available only in Ultimate, Business, and Enterprise versions) which backs up an entire computer as an image onto a hard disk or DVD. Complete PC Backup can automatically recreate a machine setup onto new hardware or hard disk in case of any hardware failures. Complete PC Restore can be initiated from within Windows Vista, or from the Windows Vista installation CD in the event the PC is so corrupt that it cannot start up normally from the hard disk.
- Windows Mail: A replacement for Outlook Express that includes a new mail store that improves stability,[10] and features integrated Instant Search. It has the Phishing Filter like IE7 and a Junk mail filtering which is enhanced through regular updates via Windows Update.[11]
- Windows Calendar is a new calendar and task application.
- Windows Photo Gallery, a photo and movie library management application. WPG can import from digital cameras, tag and rate individual items, adjust colors and exposure, create and display slideshows (with pan and fade effects), and burn slideshows to DVD.
- Windows DVD Maker, a companion program to Windows Movie Maker, which provides the ability to create video DVDs based on a user's content. Users can design a DVD with title, menu, video, soundtrack, pan and zoom motion effects on pictures or slides, in minutes.
- Windows Media Center, which was previously exclusively bundled as a separate version of Windows XP, known as Windows XP Media Center Edition, has been incorporated into the Home Premium and Ultimate editions of Windows Vista.
- Games and Games Explorer: Games included with Windows have been modified to showcase Vista's graphics capabilities. New games are Chess Titans, Mahjong Titans and Purble Place. A new Games Explorer special folder holds shortcuts and information to all games on the user's computer.
- Windows Mobility Center is a control panel that centralizes the most relevant information related to mobile computing (brightness, sound, battery level / power scheme selection, wireless network, screen orientation, presentation settings, etc.).
- Windows Meeting Space replaces NetMeeting. Users can share applications (or their entire desktop) with other users on the local network, or over the Internet using peer-to-peer technology (higher versions than Starter and Home Basic can take advantage of hosting capabilities, limiting previous to "join" mode only)
- Shadow Copy automatically creates daily backup copies of files and folders. Users can also create "shadow copies" by setting a System Protection Point using the System Protection tab in the System control panel. The user can be presented multiple versions of a file throughout a limited history and be allowed to restore, delete, or copy those versions. This feature is available only in the Business, Enterprise, and Ultimate editions of Windows Vista and is inherited from Windows Server 2003.[12]
- Windows Update: Software and security updates have been simplified,[13] now operating solely via a control panel instead of as a web application. Windows Mail's spam filter and Windows Defender's definitions are updated automatically via Windows Update. Users that choose the recommended setting for Automatic Updates will have the latest drivers installed and available when they add a new device.
- Parental controls: Allows administrators to control which websites, programs, and games each standard user can use and install. This feature is available in Home Premium and Ultimate versions of Vista.
- Windows SideShow: Enables the auxiliary displays on newer laptops or on supported Windows Mobile devices. It is meant to be used to display device gadgets while the computer is on or off.
- Speech recognition is integrated into Vista.[14] It features a redesigned user interface and configurable command-and-control commands. Unlike the Office 2003 version, which works only in Office and WordPad, Speech Recognition in Windows Vista works for any accessible application. In addition, it currently supports several languages: British and American English, Spanish, French, German, Chinese (Traditional and Simplified), and Japanese.
- New fonts, including several designed for screen reading, and improved Chinese (Yahei, JhengHei), Japanese (Meiryo) and Korean (Malgun) fonts. See Windows Vista typefaces. ClearType has also been enhanced and enabled by default.
- Problem Reports and Solutions, a control panel which allows users to view previously sent problems and any solutions or additional information that is available.
- Improved audio controls allow the system-wide volume or volume of individual audio devices and even individual applications to be controlled separately. New audio functionalities such as Room Correction, Bass Management, Speaker Fill and Headphone virtualization have also been incorporated.
- System Performance Assessment is a tool used to benchmark system performance. Software such as games can retrieve this rating and modify its own behavior at runtime to improve performance. The benchmark tests CPU, RAM, 2-D and 3-D graphics acceleration, Graphics Memory and Hard disk space.[15][16]
- Windows Ultimate Extras: The Ultimate Edition of Windows Vista provides access to extra games and tools, available through Windows Update. This replaces the Microsoft Plus! software bundle that was sold alongside prior versions of Windows.
- Built-in hard drive partition management: A utility to modify hard disk drive partitions, including shrinking, creating and formatting new partitions.
- Performance Diagnostic Console includes various tools for tuning and monitoring system performance and resources activities of CPU, disks, network, memory and other resources. It shows the operations on files, the opened connections, etc.
Core technologies
Windows Vista is intended to be a technology-based release, to provide a solid base to include technologies, many of which will be related to how the system functions, and hence not readily visible to the user. An example of this is the restructuring of the architecture of the audio, print, display, and networking subsystems; while the results of this work will be visible to software developers, end-users will only see what appear to be evolutionary changes in the user interface.
Vista includes technologies such as ReadyBoost and ReadyDrive which employ fast flash memory (located on USB drives and hybrid hard disk drives respectively) to improve system performance by caching commonly-used programs and data. This manifests itself in improved battery life on notebook computers as well, since a hybrid drive can use the Flash memory to cache the data currently in use by the OS and/or other applications, spinning down the disc platters till some fresh data is required. Another new technology called SuperFetch utilizes machine learning techniques to analyze usage patterns in order to allow Windows Vista to make decisions about what application and content should be present in system memory at any given time.
As part of the redesign of the networking architecture, IPv6 has been incorporated into the operating system, and a number of performance improvements have been introduced, such as TCP window scaling. Windows Vista includes more comprehensive support for wireless networking, compared with previous versions of Windows.
For graphics, Vista introduces a new Windows Display Driver Model (WDDM), as well as major revisions to Direct3D. The new driver model facilitates the new Desktop Window Manager, which provides the tearing-free desktop and special effects that are the cornerstones of Windows Aero. WDDM's current version 1.0 is able to offload rudimentary tasks to the GPU, install drivers without requiring a system reboot and seamlessly recover from rare driver errors due to illegal application behavior. The next version is going to require an entirely new generation of GPUs, which NVIDIA and ATI are working on. Direct3D 10, developed in conjunction with major display driver manufacturers, is a new architecture with more advanced shader support, and allows the graphics processing unit to render more complex scenes without assistance from the CPU. It features improved load balancing between CPU and GPU and also optimizes data transfer between them.[17]
At the core of the operating system, many improvements have been made to the memory manager, process scheduler, heap manager, and I/O scheduler. A Kernel Transaction Manager has been implemented that gives applications the ability to work with the file system and registry using atomic transaction operations.
Security-related technologies
Improved security was a primary design goal for Vista.[4] Microsoft's Trustworthy Computing initiative, which aims to improve public trust in its products, has had a direct effect on its development. This effort has resulted in a number of new security and safety features.
User Account Control is perhaps the most significant and visible of these changes. User Account Control is a security technology that makes it possible for users to use their computer with fewer privileges by default. This was often difficult in previous versions of Windows, as the previous "limited" user accounts proved too restrictive and incompatible with a large proportion of application software, and even prevented some basic operations such as looking at the calendar from the notification tray. In Windows Vista, when an action requiring administrative rights is requested, the user will be first prompted for an administrator name and password; in cases where the user is already an administrator, the user is still prompted to confirm the pending privileged action. User Account Control asks for credentials in a Secure Desktop mode, where the entire screen is blacked out, temporarily disabled, and only the authorization window is active and highlighted. The intent is to stop a malicious program 'spoofing' the user interface, attempting to capture admin credentials.
Internet Explorer 7's new security and safety features include a phishing filter, IDN with anti-spoofing capabilities, and integration with system-wide parental controls. For added security, ActiveX controls are disabled by default. Also, Internet Explorer operates in a "protected mode" which operates with lower permissions than the user and it runs in isolation from other applications in the operating system, preventing it from accessing or modifying anything besides the Temporary Internet Files directory.[18] Microsoft's anti-spyware product, Windows Defender, has been incorporated into Windows, providing protection against malware and other threats. Changes to various system configuration settings (such as new auto-starting applications) are blocked unless the user gives consent.
Another significant new feature is BitLocker Drive Encryption, a data protection technology included in the Enterprise and Ultimate editions of Vista that provides encryption for the entire operating system volume. Bitlocker can work in conjunction with a Trusted Platform Module chip (version 1.2) that is on a computer's motherboard, or with a USB key.[19]
A variety of other privilege-restriction techniques are also built into Vista. An example is the concept of "integrity levels" in user processes, whereby a process with a lower integrity level cannot interact with processes of a higher integrity level and cannot perform DLL–injection to a processes of a higher integrity level. The security restrictions of Windows services are more fine-grained, so that services (especially those listening on the network) have no ability to interact with parts of the operating system they do not need to. Obfuscation techniques such as address space layout randomization are used to increase the amount of effort required of malware before successful infiltration of a system. Code Integrity verifies that system binaries haven’t been tampered with by malicious code.
As part of the redesign of the network stack, Windows Firewall has been upgraded, with new support for filtering both incoming and outgoing traffic. Advanced packet filter rules can be created which can grant or deny communications to specific services.
Business technologies
While much of the focus of Vista's new capabilities has been on the new user interface, security technologies, and improvements to the core operating system, Microsoft is also adding new deployment and maintenance features.
- The WIM image format (Windows IMage) is the cornerstone of Microsoft's new deployment and packaging system. WIM files, which contain an image of Windows Vista, can be maintained and patched without having to rebuild new images. Windows Images can be delivered via Systems Management Server or Business Desktop Deployment technologies. Images can be customized and configured with applications then deployed to corporate client personal computers using little to no touch by a system administrator. ImageX is the Microsoft tool used to create and customize images.
- Windows Deployment Services replaces Remote Installation Services for deploying Vista and prior versions of Windows.
- Approximately 700 new Group Policy settings have been added, covering most aspects of the new features in the operating system, as well as significantly expanding the configurability of wireless networks, removable storage devices, and user desktop experience. Vista also introduced an XML based format (ADMX) to display registry-based policy settings, making it easier to manage networks that span geographic locations and different languages. [20]
- Services for UNIX has been renamed "Subsystem for UNIX-based Applications," and is included with the Enterprise and Ultimate editions of Vista. Network File System (NFS) client support is also included.
- Multilingual User Interface - Unlike previous version of Windows which required language packs to be loaded to provide local language support, Windows Vista Ultimate and Enterprise editions supports the ability to dynamically change languages based on the logged on user's preference.
- Wireless Projector support
Business customers who are enrolled in the Microsoft Software Assurance program are offered a set of additional tools and services collectively known as the "Desktop Optimization Pack". This includes the Microsoft SoftGrid application virtualization platform, an asset inventory service, and additional tools for maintaining Group Policy settings in a fashion similar to a revision control system.
Developer technologies
Windows Vista includes a large number of new application programming interfaces. Chief among them is the inclusion of version 3.0 of the .NET Framework, which consists of a class library and Common Language Runtime. Version 3.0 includes four new major components:[21]
- Windows Presentation Foundation is a user interface subsystem and framework based vector graphics, which will make use of 3D computer graphics hardware and Direct3D technologies. It provides the foundation for building applications and blending together application UI, documents, and media content. It is the successor to Windows Forms.
- Windows Communication Foundation is a service-oriented messaging subsystem which will enable applications and systems to interoperate locally or remotely using Web services.
- Windows Workflow Foundation provides task automation and integrated transactions using workflows. It is the programming model, engine and tools for building workflow-enabled applications on Windows.
- Windows CardSpace is a component which securely stores digital identities of a person, and provides a unified interface for choosing the identity for a particular transaction, such as logging into a website.
These technologies will also be available for Windows XP and Windows Server 2003 to facilitate their introduction to and usage by developers and end users.
There are also significant new development APIs in the core of the operating system, notably the completely re-architected audio, networking, print, and video interfaces, major changes to the security infrastructure, improvements to the deployment and installation of applications ("ClickOnce" and Windows Installer 4.0), new device driver development model ("Windows Driver Foundation"), Transactional NTFS, mobile computing API advancements (power management, Tablet PC Ink support, SideShow) and major updates to (or complete replacements of) many core subsystems such as Winlogon and CAPI.
There are some issues for software developers using some of the graphics APIs in Vista. Games or programs which are built solely on Vista's version of DirectX, 10, will not work on prior versions of Windows, as DirectX 10 is not backwards-compatible at any level.[22] According to a Microsoft blog, there are three choices for OpenGL implementation on Vista. An application can use the default implementation, which translates OpenGL calls into the Direct3D API and is frozen at OpenGL version 1.4, or an application can use an Installable Client Driver (ICD), which comes in two flavors: legacy and Vista-compatible. A legacy ICD, the kind already provided by independent hardware vendors targeting Windows XP, will disable the Desktop Window Manager, noticeably degrading user experience under Windows Aero. A Vista-compatible ICD takes advantage of a new API, and will be fully compatible with the Desktop Window Manager.[23] At least two primary vendors, ATI and NVIDIA, are expected to provide full Vista-compatible ICDs in the near future.[24] However, hardware overlay is not supported, because it is considered as an obsolete feature in Vista. ATI and NVIDIA strongly recommend using compositing desktop/FBOs for same functionality.[25]
Welcome Center
Welcome Center can display an overview of the new features, set up new users, and set protection options for the PC. Welcome Center is run from the System and Maintenance menu of the Control Panel menu and by default, is run upon first boot of Windows Vista.
Some Welcome Center options can connect online via the Internet to Microsoft websites for accessing or downloading various files to the user's computer.
Deprecated features
Some notable Windows XP features and components have been replaced or removed in Windows Vista, including Windows Messenger, the network Messenger Service, HyperTerminal, MSN Explorer, Active Desktop, and the replacement of NetMeeting with Windows Meeting Space. Windows Vista also does not include the Windows XP "Luna" visual theme, or most of the classic color schemes which have been part of Windows since the Windows 3.x era. The "Hardware profiles" startup feature has been removed as well, along with support for older motherboard technologies like the EISA bus, APM and Game port support. IP over 1394 (TCP/IP over IEEE 1394) has been removed.[26]
WinHlp32.exe, used to display 32-bit .hlp files (help pages), is no longer included in Windows Vista as Microsoft considers it obsolete,[27] though it is available as a separate download. Microsoft prohibits software manufacturers from re-introducing the .hlp help system with their products.
Telnet.exe is no longer installed by default, but is still included as an installable feature.[28]
