Well, sort of. It’s been released to manufacturing, and will be available for retail sale and on new PCs at the end of January.
Does it work? What’s in it for you? Is it worth it? I tackle all three of those questions over at ZDNet in Will Windows Vista be worth the wait?
I’ve also got a detailed image gallery, if you want to see exactly what the final RTM build looks like.
So over the weekend I installed a nice shiney RTM build and the sounds have been upgraded from the ones in XP to the new creations by Robert Fripp. I’d thought I would share some of these with you and I’ve compiled them in this mp3 which you can download and listen to below.
I have to admit, I was blown away. Even the new puppy stopped chewing on his squeaky toy to listen.
PC Advisor reports:
[K]eep your eyes peeled for some big software announcements to coincide with Windows Vista’s release. Microsoft said several developers are working on products to make the most of Vista’s advances, and we were told that Microsoft bigwig Jim Allchin, co-president of its platforms and services division, described one as “the best Windows application ever”.
Hmmm, what could it be?
… My Windows Vista Inside Out co-author, Carl Siechert, suggests that the mystery app “removes SPP/WGA/WPA in all its forms, removes all copies of the EULA, and replaces them with GPL. But here’s where it gets even better: it connects to Diebold voting machines nationwide…” Yikes!
CRN reports (via anonymous sources) that Windows Vista and Office 2007 will have a tandem launch during the last week of November in New York City.
I’m thinking maybe a parade, some balloons, a little television coverage?
Just saw this announcement of the release of the OneCare Live 1.5 beta. This one adds support for Windows Vista, integrated virus/spyware detection, and the option to back up over networks.
I’m installing today and will let you know how it goes.
“They just handed me this paper. Say Windows Vista. OK. Veesta or Vista? OK.”
Perhaps the first time that the term brainfart has been used in a Microsoft marketing campaign.
Long Zheng has more context.
Back in June, I took a bunch of heat from Microsoft when I reported that the company was planning to roll out a Windows “kill switch” this fall.
Microsoft denied it.
Now, today, comes an announcement of the Software Protection Platform for Windows Vista, which sounds pretty damn close to what I wrote about in the first place.
If your copy of Windows Vista is “identified as counterfeit or non-genuine” you’ll be kicked into “reduced functionality mode”, which Microsoft describes as follows:
[T]he default Web browser will be started and the user will be presented with an option to purchase a new product key. There is no start menu, no desktop icons, and the desktop background is changed to black. The Web browser will fully function and Internet connectivity will not be blocked. After one hour, the system will log the user out without warning. [emphasis added]
Sounds like a kill switch to me. Go read the article and tell me what you think.
In the comments to my earlier post on using ISO images to mount disk-based copies of CDs and DVDs, MarConey asks a good question, starting with an inventory of available disk space on his current system:
C: – 30 gig HDD, 7 gigs free; has Win XP Home on it.
M: – 80 gig HDD, 50 gigs free; has mostly music files stored on it.Let’s say I extract the necessary files from the ISO to the M: drive and then run setup from there. Will I be able to upgrade Win XP as things now stand or do I still really need to have 15 gigs free on that C: drive??? Because, I really don’t want to have to go through the exercise of copying everything over to a bigger drive first and then doing the upgrade, etc., or, re-installing every single program and driver, etc…..if I don’t have to.
OK, first of all, you don’t want to extract the files to the M: drive. You want to either burn the ISO image to a DVD or mount it so the system thinks it’s a DVD.
Second, you really do need a full 15GB of space? As it turns out, I have nearly a perfect test bed for this scenario. In a virtual machine, I had Windows XP installed on a 16GB hard drive, with roughly 11GB free. I copied a 3GB file to the C: drive so that it had less than 8GB free and then added a second virtual hard drive with 50GB of free space.
With that out of the way, I started the upgrade from the DVD. A few hours later (yeah, it took a long time) the upgrade was complete. The installer was able to use some space on the second drive and still had plenty of room left on the first drive when all was done.
So yes, you can install Vista on a machine with less free space than you might think.
As several people have already noted, Windows Vista Build 5728 is now available for download. It’s an update to RC1 that has quite a few bug fixes and cosmetic tweaks. Before you head off to download it, though, read this paragraph from the official download page at least twice:
This build (5728) has a number of improvements and updates from RC1, but has not been put through the same internal testing process as RC1 and therefore may be unstable in certain installations. We are making this release available for a limited time only (and only by download) in order to get broad distribution and testing in a variety of PC configurations. Please note: This build may not have the same level of support or servicing via Windows Update, and you may not be able to upgrade to the final version of Windows Vista.
Personally, I am continuing to use RC1 on a couple of production systems (including the one I’m using to create this post). I’m installing 5728 and other interim beta releases on virtual machines and non-critical systems that I know I will reformat many times between now and January. (The RC1 download is still available here.)
Seriously, if you’re thinking about installing this build on a system that contains critical apps or data, go back and read that paragraph above three more times.
Some fascinating details about Microsoft’s Windows Vista test program. This map is especially interesting.
Ed Bott 
