Windows Vista

Vista Hardware Support

To help buyers identify hardware suitable for running Vista, Microsoft has a two-tier certification and logo program. The "Works with Windows Vista" logo provides assurance of basic Vista compatibility, and "Certified for Windows Vista" indicates that products specifically enable, or take advantage of, Vista features (such as Windows Aero). SLIDESHOW (74) 

Slideshow | All Shots



Vista supports new hardware in a variety of ways. The OS includes DirectX 10, supporting geometry shaders, graphics memory paging, graphics hardware virtualization, and other features that should enable ever-more-photorealistic games and simulations. (For our review of the first graphics chip and card ready to take advantage of DX10, go to go.pcmag.com/geforce8800.) Audio and printer driver architecture has changed as well, again with the goal of enhancing performance and stability. Vista also offers improved support for new varieties of peripherals and components, including Blu-ray and HD DVD devices.

Laptop and Tablet PC users get new goodies, too, without having to buy separate versions. New Tablet features include touch-screen support, improved pen navigation, gestures, and personalized handwriting recognition. And Media Center is now integral rather than packaged as a separate OS edition.

Vista's intriguing technology called SideShow lets devices with "auxiliary screens" show snippets of pertinent information even when the system isn't powered on. Imagine the Caller ID display on the outside of a clamshell cell phone, only more powerful and flexible. We're waiting for hardware that will let us test SideShow firsthand

from : http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2089594,00.asp

Windows Vista

Vista Fundamentals

Some of an operating system's crucial responsibilities include managing hardware and drive storage and providing a set of APIs (application programming interfaces) that other software can rely on. And, indeed, some of Vista's most important enhancements lie beneath the surface. Many of these improvements are security related. We've written extensively about them, and you can get the latest in "Microsoft Locks Down Security...and Roils Security Vendors".

Networking is another revamped area. Vista's new TCP/IP stack includes native IPv6 support and auto-tuning via TCP window scaling. And it has better built-in Wi-Fi support.

Vista also has a number of performance enhancers. SuperFetch tracks frequently used programs and preloads them. ReadyBoost lets you use flash memory on a high-speed USB drive as a supplemental swap file (this can be substantially faster than a spinning hard drive). ReadyDrive supports hybrid hard drives with built-in flash-memory caches. There's also a low-priority I/O mechanism that lets programs such as Windows Defender run scans in the background with less disruption to foreground activity; and Vista automatically schedules drive defragmentation.

On the whole, my experience has been positive—on a screamer system. Others have had worse luck, particularly those who skimped on RAM. The SYSmark and MobileMark benchmark tests are currently being modified for testing Vista's performance; once they're up and running, we'll post performance results at go.pcmag.com/vistaspeed.

Vista's new sleep mode is supposed to make suspending and resuming faster and more reliable. With the machines I've been testing it on, I don't sense huge benefits from the new sleep mode. Whether that's due to Vista or to third-party hardware or drivers is hard to determine.

Microsoft also made a lot of more fundamental changes in the OS kernel, which provides low-level functions such as memory management, multi-processor synchronization, and I/O scheduling. Most are intended to help improve performance, security, and reliability.
Vista also extends the Windows API by incorporating the .NET 3.0 framework, giving developers capabilities that include Windows Presentation Foundation (formerly code-named Avalon), Windows Communication Framework (formerly Indigo), and Windows CardSpace (formerly InfoCard). But there's no WinFS (Windows Future Storage), the database-backed file system that was to be one of Vista's core innovations. As a result, Vista's support for tagging and relating files is less extensive than Microsoft promised back when the OS was still known by its code name, Longhorn.

Other additions are APIs to support RSS natively and a central RSS store. For example, if you subscribe to an RSS feed in Internet Explorer 7, the RSS reader Sidebar gadget automatically detects it

Windows Vista

from:http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2088444,00.asp

by John Clyman

Windows Vista is here at last. One of the largest software projects ever undertaken, Vista is indisputably a milestone—despite Microsoft's having abandoned many of its most ambitious goals for the OS—and not just for Microsoft but for the entire PC industry.

Of course, Vista is not without its skeptics. PC makers say it will require more processing power, graphics capabilities, and memory than is typical of today's mainstream machines. Software vendors complain that Vista's vaunted security features are, in fact, locking them out. Users may wonder if it offers enough that's truly new to be worth the bother—particularly given that a number of Vista features and bundled applications are also available for Windows XP.

We've performed extensive, hands-on analysis of Vista and sorted out the claims to help you decide whether, or more realistically when, to make the move—and to show you what you can expect when you do

Windows Vista 

The Vista Promise

Microsoft calls Vista "a breakthrough computing experience." That's marketing hyperbole, for sure, but it's not entirely unfounded. The new OS is far more than Windows XP with a pretty new face. Many aspects of Vista are substantive improvements: stronger security, better built-in apps, networking enhancements, parental controls, and DirectX 10 



graphics support, to name just a few.




As a whole, Vista feels more evolutionary than revolutionary. That's not all bad; one of Microsoft's strengths has been its commitment to backward compatibility, which continues with Vista.

Vista's real competitor, though, is Windows XP. For many users, XP is good enough. And for all the advances in Vista, it's hard to avoid seeing the things that aren't as good as they could have been.

Nor is Vista bug-free. As I assessed final code, I ran into a variety of small but annoying glitches and found plenty of features that didn't work as seamlessly as I would have liked. I can't shake the feeling that Vista's release was rushed.

So what's our verdict? Vista is good—in some respects very good—but not spectacular. Call it a nice-to-have product rather than a must-have.

If you're buying a new consumer PC this spring, it probably makes sense to get Vista. (For a few contrarian points of view, see "Why Not to Buy Vista".) Soon, there won't be much of a choice; according to Microsoft's support life cycle, retail PC buyers will have only a year after Vista's release to buy Windows XP.

If you've already got a PC running Windows XP smoothly, it's harder to see a reason to upgrade right away. You can wait until you replace your machine, or at least a few months, until Vista's kinks are worked out. (If you're curious to see how well your existing machine will support Vista, try Microsoft's Vista Upgrade Advisor, available at www.windowsvista.com/upgradeadvisor). In the meantime, you can download some of the new software included in Vista, such as Internet Explorer 7, Windows Media Player 11, and a desktop search utility, to enjoy some of the same capabilities you'd get in Vista itself.

For business customers, it makes sense to start evaluating Vista now, particularly since improved deployment, management, and security could lead to significant cost reductions in the long term. But you'll want to be confident about compatibility and support before you make the transition en masse. (See "Vista at Work," for more on features for businesses in Windows Vista Business and Vista Enterprise.)

Let's dive in and take a more detailed look at what Vista has to offer

MacIntosh vs. Windows: Choosing to take a bite of the Apple

By Winn Schwartau

WinTel finally broke my back. Or perhaps it was that last series of inexplicable crashes, dirty reinstalls and similar constant complaints from co-workers and friends. 

WinTel finally broke my back, and I wanted to know why. 

I was a PC bigot and I am still a security guy. 

Having lived on PC [DOS, Win, etc.] for 25 years, I, like so many other people, just assumed [ASSuME] that Macs were toys and PCs were for us grownups. I also assumed that the endless assault upon my 

Mad as Hell archive

Want to read other installments in the series? This series will be updated twice weekly so don't forget to check back, it may benefit your organization.

 


digital being was a God 

Mad as Hell archive

Want to read other installments in the series? This series will be updated twice weekly so don't forget to check back, it may benefit your organization.

 

Given Right of the bad guys and I was just going to have 
to deal with it. I also assumed, without ever looking into it in detail, that desktop/laptop security woes were a ubiquitous reality. 

I was wrong. So I decided to examine the security issues I was facing and see what I could do about them. But there was a lot more than that. 

If PCs are supposed to be for Ma & Pa and the masses, how come I spend so much time making my machine live? How come these blasted useful devices are so much more difficult than a toaster or a microwave or a car? What was the Ma & Pa of the universe doing? 

Then I thought about the security of the desktop -- not from the traditional bits, bytes and patches viewpoint, but from the one in which I was trained: as a systems engineer. Once I began viewing desktop security from that vantage point, things became exquisitely clear. 

I had been wrong all of these years, having been sucked into the popular maelstrom of blinded WinTel acceptance, and all of the security problems that come with choosing that technology for mission critical work. 

The "experiment' I began on April 29 has unexpectedly caused a frenzy of examination of the security aspects of the PC, and I guess a lot of folks are reading about my transitions. 

NOTE: I bought my Macs. Retail. I do not know Steve Jobs. I have no Apple stock. I am not a paid Mac whore. OK? 

In the "Mad as Hell" series, I will be exploring: 
How to make Ma & Pa happy campers again.
Why the fear of computing is slowly being cleansed from my carbon system. 
How I believe we can vastly improve the national security of this country, its critical infrastructures and safe corporate computing. 
How to really make security an enabler versus an inhibitor. 
If I am correct, I believe that by viewing PC security differently, we can save our country tens of billions of dollars every year, and measurably increase productivity within the corporate world while simultaneously reducing costs. 
The "Mad as Hell" series is about security -- period. Do not expect uber-geekinesss. There are plenty of folks who can do that more admirably than me. I am terrifically interested in the Big Security Picture and what we can all do to drastically improve it with minimal pain or cost.

Mac OS X Leopard vs. Windows Vista: The Final Word

The Mac vs. Windows wiki provides an in-depth comparison between two of the most popular consumer operating systems today: Mac OS X Leopard and Windows Vista (Home Premium and Ultimate). We answer the tough questions such as... 


Which features does one have the other lacks? 
Who provides a more "complete" user experience out of the box? 
How do they stack up against other operating systems such as Linux? 

We recognize that different people have different needs for their computers. What's best for one is not always best for another. We simply present the facts, and let you decide for yourself which operating system is best. 

And since Mac vs. Windows is a full-blown wiki, you can edit the comparisons on this website straight from your web browser. See a feature missing? Spot an error? Sign up as a contributor and help us make this website the most comprehensive and unbiased source of its kind.

What is Mac OS X

The goal of this document is not to trace the history of Mac OS X in great detail, so this section would be brief. A more extensive history of Apple's operating systems is covered in A History of Apple's Operating Systems. 

All of Steve Jobs' operational responsibilities at Apple were "taken away" on May 31, 1985. Soon (within weeks), Jobs had come up with an idea for a startup for which he pulled in five other Apple employees. The idea was to create the perfect research computer (for Universities and research labs). Jobs had earlier met up with Nobel laureate biochemist Paul Berg, who had jumped at Jobs' suggestion of using a computer for various simulations. Although Apple was interested in investing in Jobs' startup, they were outraged (and sued Jobs) when they learnt about the five Apple employees joining Jobs. Apple dropped the suit later after some subsequent mutual agreements. The startup was NeXT Computer, Inc. 

Jobs unveiled the first NeXT Computer (running NEXTSTEP 0.8) on October 12, 1988, in San Francisco, although a mature release of the operating system took another year. The name "NEXTSTEP" has gone through a number of capitalization permutations, so we shall simply use "NEXTSTEP". NEXTSTEP 1.0 shipped on September 18, 1989, over two years later than what Jobs had first predicted and hoped for. NEXTSTEP was based on Mach 2.5 and 4.3BSD, and had an advanced GUI system based on Postscript. It used Objective-C as its native programming language, and included the NeXT Interface Builder. 

In the fall of 1990, the first web browser (offering WYSIWYG browsing and authoring) was created at CERN by Tim Berners-Lee on a NeXT computer. Tim's collaborator, Robert Cailliau, later went on to say that "... Tim's prototype implementation on NeXTStep is made in the space of a few months, thanks to the qualities of the NeXTStep software development system ..." 

NEXTSTEP 2.0 was released exactly a year later on September 18, 1990 (with support for CD-ROMs, color monitors, NFS, on-the-fly spell checking, dynamically loadable device drivers, ...). 2.1 followed on March 25, 1991, and 3.0 in September, 1992. 

In the 1992 NeXTWORLD Expo, NEXTSTEP 486, a version (costing $995) for the PC was announced. Versions 3.1 and 3.2 were released in May and October, 1993, respectively. The last version of NEXTSTEP, 3.3, was released in February, 1995. A bit earlier, in 1994, NeXT and Sun had jointly released specifications for OpenStep, an open platform (comprised of several APIs and frameworks) that anybody could use to create their own implementation of *STEP. NeXT's implementation was named OPENSTEP, the successor to the NEXTSTEP operating system. Three versions of OPENSTEP were ever released: 4.0 (July 22, 1996), 4.1 (December, 1996), and 4.2 (January, 1997). SunOS, HP-UX, and even Windows NT had implementations at a point. The GNUstep Project still exists. Even though *STEP ran on many architectures (multi-architecture "fat binaries" were introduced by NeXT), by 1996, things were not looking good for them, and NeXT was giving more importance to WebObjects, a development tool for the Web. 

Meanwhile, Apple had been desperately seeking to create an operating system that could compete with the onslaught from Microsoft. They actually wanted to beat Windows 95 to market, but failed. Apple suffered a setback when Pink OS, a joint venture between IBM and Apple, was killed in 1995. Apple eventually started work on an advanced operating system codenamed Copland, which was first announced to the public in 1994. The first beta of Copland went out in November, 1995, but a 1996 release (as planned and hoped) did not seem feasible. Soon afterwards, Apple announced that they would start shipping "pieces of Copland technology" beginning with System 7.6. Copland turned out to be a damp squib. 

At this point Apple became interested in buying Be, a company that was becoming popular as the maker of the BeBox, running the BeOS. The deal between Apple's Gil Amelio and Be's Gassée never materialized - it has been often reported that Apple offered $125 million while Be wanted an "outrageous" $200 million plus. The total investment in Be at that time was estimated to be only $20 million! 

Apple then considered Windows NT, Solaris and even Pink OS. Then, Steve Jobs called Amelio, and advised him that Be was not a good fit for Apple's OS roadmap. NeXT contacted Apple to discuss possibilities of licensing OPENSTEP, which, unlike BeOS, had at least been proven in the market. Jobs pitched NeXT technology very strongly to Apple, and asserted that OPENSTEP was many years ahead of its time. All this worked out, and Apple acquired NeXT in February, 1997, for $427 million. Amelio later quipped that "We choose Plan A instead of Plan Be." 

Apple named its upcoming NeXT-based system Rhapsody, while it continued to improve the existing Mac OS, often with technology that was supposed to go into Copland. Rhapsody saw two developer releases, in September, 1997, and May, 1998. 

Jobs became the interim CEO of Apple on September 16, 1997. 

Mac OS X was first mentioned in Apple's OS strategy announcement at the 1998 WWDC. Jobs said that OS X would ship in the fall of 1999, and would inherit from both Mac OS and Rhapsody. Moreover, backward compatibility would be maintained to ease customers into the transition. 

Mac OS X did come out in 1999, as Mac OS X Server 1.0 (March 16, 1999), a developer preview of the desktop version, and as Darwin 0.1. Mac OS X beta was released on September 13, 2000. 

At the time of this writing, Mac OS X has seen four major releases: 10.0 ("Cheetah", March 24, 2001), 10.1 ("Puma", September 29, 2001), 10.2 ("Jaguar", August 13, 2002), and 10.3 ("Panther", October 24, 2003). 

It would be an understatement to say that OS X is derived from NEXTSTEP and OPENSTEP. In many respects, it's not just similar, it's the same. One can think of it as OpenStep 5 or 6, say. This is not a bad thing at all - rather than create an operating system from scratch, Apple tried to do the smart thing, and used what they already had to a great extent. However, the similarities should not mislead you: Mac OS X is evolved enough that what you can do with it is far above and beyond NEXTSTEP/OPENSTEP.

from : http://www.kernelthread.com/mac/osx/history.html