Development of Windows Vista

Gradually, Windows "Longhorn" assimilated many of the important new features and technologies slated for "Blackcomb", resulting in the release date being pushed back a few times.

"Longhorn" development started afresh, building on the Windows Server 2003 SP1 code-base, and re-incorporating only the features that would be intended for an actual operating system release.

After "Longhorn" was named Windows Vista in mid-2005, an unprecedented beta-test program was started which involved hundreds of thousands of volunteers and companies.

As an evolutionary release over build 3683, it contained a number of small improvements, including a modified blue "Plex" theme and a new, simplified Windows Image-based installer that operates in graphical mode from the outset, and completed an install of the operating system in approximately one third the time of Windows XP on the same hardware.

Several features Microsoft had been working on were rolled into this build, such as a range of parental controls, also moved and enlarged the Windows logo to the left side of the Start button a lot of additional configurability for the sidebar (including being able to put it below the start bar at the bottom of the screen), and the notion of "Libraries" (later known as virtual folders) of files.

Larger image and video previews were displayed in a tooltip when the mouse hovered over a file, column-level filtering of results was introduced, and the overall performance of Explorer was somewhat improved overbuild 4015, though the memory leak issues were not entirely resolved.

Build 4029's name was displayed as "onghornLay rofessionalPay ersionVay 2003" (Pig Latin for Longhorn Professional Version 2003) in various places around the operating system.

The technology, better known by its original code-name of "Palladium", had garnered much criticism from analysts, security specialists, and researchers, and was often cited by advocates of non-Microsoft operating systems as a reason to migrate to their preferred platform.

[12] In light of a large amount of negative response not only from analysts, but enterprise customers and software developers, Microsoft shelved many aspects of the NGSCB project for an indefinite period.

[13] The only aspect of NGSCB that was included with the final release of the operating system is BitLocker, a drive-encryption technology which can make use of a Trusted Platform Module chip to facilitate secure startup and protect user data.

In a September 23, 2005 front-page article on The Wall Street Journal, Microsoft co-president Jim Allchin, who had overall responsibility for the development and delivery of Windows, explained how development of Longhorn was "crashing into the ground" due in large part to the haphazard methods by which features were introduced and integrated into the core of the operating system without a clear focus on an end-product.

[20] Srivastava employed a team of core architects to visually map out the entirety of the Windows operating system, and to proactively work towards a development process that would enforce high levels of code quality, reduce interdependencies between components, and in general, "not make things worse with Vista".

The Aero visual style made its first appearance in this build, and the Desktop Window Manager was present but disabled and hidden by default.

Group Project Manager Greg Sullivan told Paul Thurrott—"You want the PC to adapt to you and help you cut through the clutter to focus on what’s important to you.

Microsoft co-president Jim Allchin also liked the name, saying that "Vista" creates the right imagery for the new product capabilities and inspires the imagination with all the possibilities of what can be done with Windows—making people's passions come alive.

Compared with the WinHEC build released earlier in the year, Vista Beta 1 was a large advancement in introducing new user interface features.

Beta 1 also introduced many of the underlying technologies slated for Vista, including the new networking and audio stacks, parental controls, and fairly complete working build of .NET Framework 3.0, then still referred to as WinFX.

Because of this change post the 5270 builds, the well-known keys 'UseMachineCheck' and 'EnableMachineCheck do not allow running the Desktop Window Manager in software emulation mode.

This build was shipped to technical beta testers and some corporate customers by Microsoft and was being used as a testing board for the extensive feedback they got from the February CTP.

Hold'em, a game that shipped with some previous CTPs, was dropped due to apparent "political sensitivity" issues; Microsoft now offers it as a separate web download for Windows Vista Ultimate users.

One issue, the inclusion of XML Paper Specification support in Vista and Microsoft Office 2007, had become a major point of dispute with Adobe Systems.

Some of the new features included a revamped Aero subsystem and a completely overhauled and significantly less obtrusive User Account Control interface.

Microsoft developer Ben Betz later explained in a blog entry that, while they felt that removing List mode made sense based on usability research and its inability to support Windows Explorer's new "grouping" feature, the feature was restored based on a great deal of feedback from beta testers.

The Network Center was significantly revised as well, collating more status information in one place, and reducing the number of steps to get to most configuration options.

After several failed attempts to correct the error, the sentence eventually became "Dear aunt, let's set so double the killer delete select all".

Among notable changes, it featured new ties to the Windows Live online services by new icons in the Welcome Center, minor updates to the Aero appearance with a slightly more bluish tint to the glass effect, big speed improvements (including setup speed), many bug fixes and further tweaked anti-aliasing in the Flip 3D feature.

[51] On September 6, RC1 was released to MSDN and Technet subscribers, as well as registered Customer Preview Program (CPP) members with Beta 2 PID's.

Vista's GUI, which continued to be improved, contained some minor tweaks, one of the more prominent of which was the new ability to customize the color, but not the transparency, of maximized windows.

This build also removed the Group Policy Management Console (GPMC) from client computers, to be replaced by a downloadable version at a later date.

This build broke the "HP Touch smart" family of applications, and also caused bugs with resuming from sleep, and in some cases rendered some 64-bit PCs with Trusted Platform Module (TPM) chips unable to finish booting.