Microsoft (finally) releases Windows Vista operating system

By Graeme Burton

Microsoft will finally release its latest operating system in December – some three years late and five years after Windows XP, but beating analyst group Gartner’s forecast that it would most likely debut in 2007. Just.

The new operating system offers greater security than existing Microsoft operating systems with, for example, user access control to prevent the automatic installation of applications and a feature called data-execution prevention, which stops potentially malicious code from running.

In addition, the operating system now offers disk-level data encryption, so that if a PC is stolen, the thieves will be unable to read the data on the disk without first cracking the encryption algorithm – a task typically beyond the abilities of the average house-breaker.

The web browser, Internet Explorer (IE), also now runs in what is called a sand box, isolated from the wider Windows environment and therefore making it more difficult for the operators of malicious websites to use security weaknesses in IE to infect users’ PCs.

Windows’s search function has also been much improved, providing lists of possible files the moment users type the first letter of their search term, with the most likely result categorised first.

However, the length of time it took Microsoft to ship Windows Vista has been the source of much criticism, including about how bloated the company has become in recent years and how burgeoning bureaucracy has stifled its ability to build software and respond to competitive challenges.

One developer, for example, spent one year simply trying to design the shut-down menu, wrestling with a committee of coders, designers, managers and other interested parties numbering more than 40 in total. In all, he wrote just a couple of hundred lines of code – and the shut-down menu has been panned for its design.

A host of high-tech features were also dropped from Windows Vista in order for Microsoft to be able to hit its heavily revised deadlines.