What is Windows Vista®

Windows Vista® is the new operating system from Microsoft. It is designed to help you use information technology to gain a competitive advantage in today’s new world of work.

Vista lets you find and use information more effectively. If you work with or manage a team, Vista gives you better access to shared data and collaboration tools. And for enterprises, Vista provides IT staff with better tools and technologies to enhance corporate IT security and data protection, and offer more efficient deployment and management.¹

Windows Vista operating systems will offer several significant improvements¹ over Windows XP. Highlights of Windows Vista include:

• New User Interface
  • Windows Aero™ interface provides advanced animations and visual feedback
    • Alt + Tab and rolling over the taskbar will show thumbnail screen previews rather than icons/comments
    • Flip and Flip 3D allow the user to quickly rotate between screen previews
• Quick Search
  • Search goes beyond the hierarchical file structure to automatically organize information to search files, e-mails and applications
  • Accessible from every Start Menu, Control Panel, and most Windows
• Windows anytime upgrade
  • Microsoft makes it easy to upgrade from one edition of Vista to another. Supported upgrades include:
  • Vista Home Basic to Vista Home Premium
  • Vista Home Basic to Vista Ultimate
  • Vista Home Premium to Vista Ultimate
  • Vista Business to Vista Ultimate
  • The Windows Anytime Upgrade feature of Vista comes with the Vista operating system. You can upgrade anytime that’s convenient for you — directly from your Vista desktop.
  • You can purchase your Vista upgrade online, anytime. Windows Anytime Upgrade guides you through the purchase process, then allows you to immediately install and start using your upgrade version of Vista (with added flexibility to postpone installation until you’re ready).
• Security & Privacy
  • Windows Defender helps protect against malware, worms, viruses, and spyware.
  • Automatic Updates and Windows Security Center helps keep your PC up to date with the latest security patches
• Improved Performance
  • Improved performance for quicker startup, shut down and resume, as well as faster application and file loading.
  • Disk Optimization orders files and applications on the hard drive to optimize launch and file-load times.
  • Built-in Diagnostics provides automatic diagnosis and correction for common error conditions, and helps to protect data when failures occur.
  • New Startup Repair technology provides step-by-step diagnostics to guide through recovery and helps minimize data loss.
• Sleep & Quick Resume
  • Combines the speed of Standby mode and the data protection and low power consumption of Hibernate
  • Fast resume from hibernate plus higher battery life with non volatile memory.
• Internet Explorer 7
  • Tabbed pages, RSS support, improved navigation
• Automated PC migration

To discover more about Windows Vista, please visit Microsoft’s Windows Vista web site for a complete description.