Windows Vista Business review

Robert Vamosi CNET

Published: 25 Jan 2007

Features

Our gut feeling is that most of the significant bells and whistles are designed for the enterprise-level customer, rather than the business user. Having a large number of features should not be confused with actually providing significant value to all users across the board. We would have preferred fewer features executed extremely well rather than an uneven mix of this and that — a one-size-fits-all operating system. And we disagree with Microsoft's seemingly arbitrary division of features within individual editions (see our feature comparison table).

Common to all editions of Windows Vista are ad hoc backup and recovery, instant Search, Internet Explorer 7 browser, Windows Media Player 11, Windows Mail email client, Windows Calendar, Windows Photo Gallery, performance tuning and self-diagnostics, Internet protocol IPv6 and IPv4 support, Windows ReadyDrive, a maximum of 4GB RAM support on 32-bit editions (up to 128GB RAM on some 64-bit editions), Windows Sync Center for mobile devices, Windows Mobility Center for presentations on the road, User Account Control security protection, Windows Security Center, Windows Defender anti-spyware, Windows Firewall, Windows Meeting Space for ad hoc wireless meetings, Remote Desktop for working from home, XPS document support for PDF-like files, improved peer-to-peer networking, improved VPN support and improved power management.

Included within the Business edition (and thus also within the Ultimate edition) are Windows Tablet PC, Windows SideShow for remote gadgets, domain join for Windows Small Business Server, Group Policy support, Client-side file caching, roaming user profiles for remote server access, Windows Fax and Scan, and Windows ShadowCopy to create file backups.

Aero, which is included in all editions except Home Basic, is part of the Windows Presentation Foundation, a subgroup of the .NET Foundation Framework, an underlying foundation for developers to build new applications. One applet is the New York Times Times Reader, the first of many products written exclusively for Windows Vista but hardly a compelling reason to upgrade. Although video playback, and even the tiny icons on Windows Vista, are now crisp and colourful with Aero, unless you watch YouTube videos all day, you won't really need Aero, nor will you miss the tiny preview windows enabled on your desktop display. Aero is also necessary to create Microsoft's new, Adobe PDF-like file format called XPS (eXtensible Page System).

As for the controversial User Account Control (UAC), you shouldn't encounter UAC except when changing system configurations or installing new software, and even then, wouldn't you — in this age of downloadable spyware — prefer to know when an executable file is about to run? Although UAC notifies you of pending system changes, it doesn't require a password. The Mac operating system does something similar but requires a password — that's security. Microsoft's more controversial method to lock down the system kernel is only available in the 64-bit editions of Windows Vista; most users will not run these editions. Another celebrated security feature works only within Windows Mail, which most people are unlikely to use. And finally, the jury is still out on whether Internet Explorer 7 is more secure than, say, Firefox 2. Windows Vista also includes a built-in but limited two-way firewall and free Windows Defender anti-spyware, which ranked poorly in competitive testing done by Download.com.

Microsoft has added new peer-to-peer possibilities, some of which are the result of its acquisition of Groove several years ago. From within Windows Explorer (there are separate Explorers within Windows Vista, one each for documents, photos and music) you can move any file into a Public Folder and then mark the file or folder for sharing on a network. Within the Business and Ultimate editions you can further mark individual files for remote access.

Missing from the Business Edition is BitLocker, the widely advertised method of encrypting your entire hard drive against, say, notebook theft. BitLocker is only available in the Enterprise and Ultimate editions. We think BitLocker would be useful for small business users as well. We also think the omission of DVD Maker from the Business edition is curious; small business customers might like to burn a video presentation for a client or perhaps burn a sample copy of new software. The omission of Windows Movie Maker we understand.

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