Manage updates with the Download App
September 1, 2006 12:32 PM PDT
Near-final Windows Vista version issued
- Related Stories
-
Microsoft Canada leaks Vista pricing
August 28, 2006 -
Windows Vista inches forward
August 25, 2006 -
Microsoft unveils new betas for Office, Vista
May 23, 2006 -
Vista debut hits a delay
March 21, 2006
Microsoft on Friday issued Release Candidate 1 of Windows Vista, a near-final test version of the of the oft-delayed operating system.
Retiring Windows chief Jim Allchin announced the release Friday in an e-mail to testers. In his note, which was also posted to the Windows Vista Team blog, Allchin said there are "a lot of improvements since Beta 2," which was released in May. Among the changes he highlighted are tweaks in the user interface, more device drivers and improved performance.
Video: First look at latest Vista build
CNET's Robert Vamosi shows off the latest build of Vista: Windows Vista RC1 (build 5564).
Work on Vista is not done, Allchin wrote. "We'll keep plugging away on application compatibility, as well as fit and finish," he wrote. He noted that software makers should use the RC1 release to certify their applications.
The software maker is shooting to wrap up development work in time to ship the operating system to large companies in November and have a mainstream launch of Vista in January.
The release candidate is available to some technical beta and corporate testers now and will be made available next week to testers that are part of Microsoft's MSDN developer network. The software released Friday is build 5600, a slight update to the test version Microsoft released in the past week to businesses that are part of an early adopter program as well as to a subset of the tech enthusiasts that have been putting Vista through its paces.
Microsoft declined to say when the consumers that have been testing Vista will get their hands on RC1. The last broadly available test version, Beta 2, was released in May.
Earlier this week, Microsoft's Canadian site accidentally leaked Vista prices onto the Web, and Amazon provided a clue to the software's availability.
See more CNET content tagged:
Jim Allchin, test version, tester, Microsoft Windows Vista, software company
102 comments
Join the conversation! Add your comment
MacBookPro. The installers went smooth as silk, taking about 45
mins, Aero Glass looks good but it is nothing spectacular. On
the Apple many Mac specific drivers are not there yet, also
neither is the Program Compatibility Wizard icon that is linked
from the Vista desktop during the install.
The TOTAL re-arrangement of the user interface, Control Panels
and even the toolbar for Internet Explorer is actaully going to be
a big time-waster...many experienced users of Windows XP will
be LOST for several days as they fumble thru oddball menus and
Icons that were never there in XP, and later find the things they
need are renamed and moved to totally new locations.
Other than the gooey Look and Feel (an attempt to mimic Mac
OS X, which is far better than Vistas look) they have actually
gone backwards with this OS design. I predict major user
disappointment, and frustration.
As for Security....the User will be making More of the choices
about what is allowed to Install or Run, so the actual workload to
maintain this OS will possibly double the number of clicks and
dialog boxes that a person sees on a day-to-day basis...leading
to another 2 steps backwards in productivity.
Let's hope these things are fixed in RC1.
It's like getting a new car. You learn the new dashboard, and you move on. Products should move forward, and avoid the mistake of getting mired in the past.
The new UI is actually more sensible than XP. I do admit that the virtual folder thing is a little odd, and will probably be for power users only. However, within 1 month of using Vista people will never want to switch back to XP.
As far as your mimic comment goes, Vista's UI is fully capable if not more capable than OS X when rendering things on the desktop (just not quite refined enough yet, but we'll see in RC1). I too am using Vista on my MacBook Pro now. Going backward in design? *** are you talking about? The significant changes to the UI and underlying technologies provide a pretty damn robust and powerful environment for anyone..Not to mention the customization elements in the UI that allow you to pretty much do whatever you like as far as look and feel - something the Mac has never done. Im not bashing the Mac..I use OS X daily, but to say that Microsoft is taking a step back is almost as shallow as Steve Jobs WWDC Keynote him and his minions Jabs at Vista when they doesnt even know what the hell they are talking about..Quit drinking the apple too-cool aid, and come back to earth - Bring Jobs with you while you're at it...
The scandals will completely devastate the release of Vista and most businesses will refuse to deploy Vista when their IT staffs tell them the new OS will only attract even more attacks than patched XP systems.
MS will be reduced to issuing press releases about victorious deployments in "a bakery in Ottawa" and "a car wash in Sierra Leone" which the press will reveals were bought by MS a week before the software was installed.
Ballmer, always regarded as completely insane and emotionally unstable, will disappear without a trace. Psychics will lead police to his final resting place, his station wagon, parked behind the IGA supermarket in Spokane where police will determine he had shot himself 9 times in the face, reloaded, and shot himself another nine times in the back, a story that will briefly provoke skeptical reactions from the press.
lmfao... ***.. 9 times, a reload, and nine more times, right in the face. lol. Classic.
XGL/Compiz:
<a class="jive-link-external" href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-CgqWlX_GsI" target="_newWindow">http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-CgqWlX_GsI</a>
Can your Vista do this?
I suppose this is the future for some Novell customers. But, in my day job I work with large companies helping them to make IT investments. Most of them have plans (and many of them have current projects) to move off of Novell to more robust offerings like those from Microsoft and IBM. So, if this is the future, then it only applies to a small portion of the IT universe out there.
I can also tell you that I am seeing a change in attitude and experience to the Microsoft server platform in the world of enterprise computing. If my friends out West continue to mature Active Directory, Windows Server, their management/security suite and their "Office Server" vision then get ready. 10 years from now people will talk about products like Websphere, Linux, Oracle, Notes like they do today about Wordperfect, Dbase III+ and Novell.
For most, the future is companies that have visions that are compelling, broad and deep. Microsoft fits that mold. Unfortunately, Novell does not.
MFB.
when Apple uses some of these tricks, they are USEFUL!
Yes, I can spend all day comparing it to my Mac OS, but what's the point? You can't possibly say anything that hasn't been said before.
And, despite the trouble, when I played around with Vista, I definitely saw the potential; it still is the coolest Windows release I've ever used. I've gotta give them credit for that.
Yes, I can spend all day comparing it to my Mac OS, but what's the point? You can't possibly say anything that hasn't been said before.
And, despite the trouble, when I played around with Vista, I definitely saw the potential; it still is the coolest Windows release I've ever used. I've gotta give them credit for that.
been stolen from OSX, turned inside out and upside down. Thats
why the usability isn't what it should be and why those who
complain about things not being where they should be are
correct.
Vista is a poorly implemented copy of linux and osx.
I do hope Redmomd provides a way to avoid the extra "are you sure you want to that" dialog boxes that I've experienced. But, other than that the early Vista builds have grown on me over the past several weeks. Seems like another step in the right direction for my friends out West.
Can't wait to see the final product!!!
MFB
Vista is still not ready and the extra 3-4 weeks of bugbusting
won't be enough, prepare yourself for some hefty updates the
months to come.
for at least 5 years.
1) Dual boot directly into Windows via Boot Camp.
2) Run Windows simultaneously using virtualization software.
3) Run Windows apps directly on OS X using Crossover instead
of Windows.
This "safety net" of options is giving many Windows users the
desire to actually try a Mac. Then they discover the Mac
software (that they thought was missing) mostly exists after all.
In retrospect, it seems to me that ME was poorly designed on purpose. The next scheduled mainstram OS (XP) was based on the NT kernel, and Microsoft has always stressed that XP has a much higher reliability compared to Windows 9x and also the earlier NT incarnations. And for once, Microsoft mostly kept to this promise. Aside from the well-known security leaks, the base OS is really stable, and system crashes have become an extremely rare event.
Now, here is my idea -- if ME's purpose was to make users update to XP more quickly, does the same also hold for Vista? I haven't heard about the next generation of Windows after Vista, but I hope MS has to offer more than transparent window frames for computer users in the 2010s.
Oh, and if someone from MS is reading this - in a world where multi-core 64bit processors are toiling at rates of several GHz, why is my computer reduced to a sluggish crawler just because it needs to read the list of contents from a CD-ROM or DVD? This is really annoying.
Yesterday, I had only been using the office PC (these are all new running XP SP2, since the office just opened) for a short time and I got the blue screen of death. I was not surprised at all, because experience has taught me that XP is not stable. This PC has an all in one printer attached via USB, and the blue screen came while printing an Excel file!!! It's routine for it to lose the connection to the scanner in the middle of a preview, not even getting to an actual scan! The scanner then becomes busy, so retrying is futile. Here we are, 25 years into the 'PC era' and simple things like printing and scanning are still big problems for Windows machines. How can anyone claim they're stable? It's gotten to the point where it's just easier to bring the documents home to my Macintosh, scan them in and email them to work.
What's really sad about this is that the example isn't out of the ordinary. Everywhere I go, I see lots of cases where PCs just don't work properly, but the users are convinced that it's their fault, so they don't complain, but avoid using the equipment.
I'm betting that the next major OS release of MS will be based on an Open Source *nix core, just like Apple's Mac OS X, which is the Mach and BSd kernel with an Apple Shell.
MS problems with Vista reveal the weaknesses of their current NT strategy. Their next step should be something like a *nix kernel with a Windows Shell.
And about your father who you claim is computer illiterate , how do you know he can install the Mac OS without misconfiguring it , if he's never needed to !!!. My friend you have BS written all over you. I have nothing against Mac, its a good OS and I like it too, what I cant stand are the Mac fans BSing Windows without a clue.
as you can imagine. And you have not yet seen a blue screen? Were
you born yesterday?
Funny, never had a mac do that.
Devin
The last thing anyone wants is another M.E. disaster.
one except the very clueless will rush out to buy this service pack.
IMO, the bulk of Vista will be sold with new computers for the first
couple of years. Most existing machines aren't able to run Aero
and that's about the only new feature that's left in Vista. MS failed
to deliver on the rest of their promises.
My next computer will have a "Designed for Microsoft Windows Vista" sticker on it, and will work fine.
The predictors of gloom and doom will once again be proven wrong.