Windows Vista: A Beginner’s Guide

Essentials you should know before booting up to Microsoft’s new OS.

Long awaited, much delayed and greatly anticipated Microsoft’s hefty upgrade to the Windows order of operating system is finally here. Windows Vista a milestone that has taken Microsoft over five years to reach. And it arrives with the assured gait of being far more advanced and robust an operating system than its venerable sibling Win XP. While a spanking new graphical user interface is its shiniest promise, security and stability are its stoutest pledge. And here is an essential skinny to this fat upgrade.

What new does Windows Vista offer?
There are many new genies in the Vista bottle. Here are some of the most vital ones.

Windows Aero: A redesigned GUI that works and looks better with juicy eye candy like translucent windows, “live” thumbnails and animations.

Windows Shell: A whole new approach to the OS with a new range of organization, navigation, and search capabilities, no Windows Explorer task pane and an altered Start.

Instant Search: It is not as instant as greased lightening but it much, much faster and much more diligent than before.

Windows Sidebar: A new side panel that features user selected gadgets to display/run/control various little applets for the weather, news etc. on your desktop.

Internet Explorer 7: An improved web browser more secure, RSS capable and with a tabbed interface.
Windows Media Player 11: Big rework here with a new interface for the media library, photo display and organization, search-as-you-type capabilities, and music sharing.

Windows Defender and Firewall: Advanced anti-spyware and a two-way firewall have now been incorporated within the OS.

Windows Mail: A replacement for Outlook Express, this offers better stability, real time search, junk mail filtering and anti-phishing.

Windows Calendar: A new system-wide calendar and task management tool.

Speech Recognition: Completely integrated with the OS. It offers a wide and flexible set of commands and extensive control capabilities for voice activation and control.

ReadyBoost: A temporary performance booster that uses any available flash memory for disk caching.

ReadyDrive: Enables PCs with hybrid drives (that integrate non-volatile flash memory with a traditional hard drive) to boot faster, resume from hibernation faster, and preserve battery power.

Windows SideShow: Allows for additional displays on laptops and Windows Mobile devices.

Windows Photo Gallery: A photo and movie library management application. Also imports, edits, creates slideshows.

Windows DVD Maker: A natural companion program to Windows Movie Maker for creation of video DVDs.

Windows Media Center: Earlier a version of XP (Windows XP Media Center), this is now part of Vista Home Premium and Ultimate editions.

Backup and Restore Center: For data backup (complete, periodic, incremental, or only changes) and restoration.

Network Center: Eases networking, network mapping and troubleshooting for PCs and devices in home and business setups with a single interface.

SuperFetch: Enables frequently used programmes and files to load faster by storing them in memory.
DirectX 10: The latest multimedia application programming interfaces (APIs) for gaming and multimedia for enhanced 3-D graphics-rendering capabilities and improved gaming.

What are Vista's hardware requirements?
To install Vista Home Basic edition, you need at least an 800-MHz or faster processor, 512MB of RAM, 800 by 600 SVGA graphics, 20GB HDD with at least 15GB free, DVD-ROM drive, and audio output.

If you want all the bells and whistles that Vista's Aero GUI can offer on the other Vista editions, 1GB of RAM, 40 GB of HDD with at least 15 GB available, a graphics card that can handle at least DirectX 9 graphics APIs with Pixel Shader 2.0 3D texturing, supports a Windows Vista Display Driver Model (WDDM) driver and at least 128MB of graphics memory, with 32 bits per pixel support is what is needed.

How do I know if my current PC is Vista ready?
Point your browser to Microsoft’s Windows Vista Upgrade Advisor for a thorough check. Or stop by at PC Pitstop for fast comparison between what you have and you ought to have.

Can I upgrade Vista over my current Windows installation or should start with a clean PC?
You can install Vista to replace your existing Windows OS (called an in-place upgrade). But it is not recommended. All kinds of complications can arise from old apps and legacy drivers poking their snouts in to cause system conflicts and inexplicable errors at a later date. So back up your data and install Vista on a clean slate.