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Windows Vista

Windows Vista, five years in the making with the code name Longhorn, was released on November 8, 2006 to certain customers, and on January 30, 2007 to the general public. It has not been released without controversy, including more restrictive licensing terms, the inclusion of a number of new Digital Rights Management technologies aimed at restricting the copying of protected digital media, and the usability of new features such as User Account Control. Only time will tell if Microsoft has met their objective of increased security, like any newly released operating system it will have teething problems. Sporting a new hardware-based graphical user interface, named Windows Aero, it is much prettier to look at than previous Windows systems, more comparable to Mac OS X.

History - Versions - Security - Troubleshooting & Tips - OEM vs Retail

Historical Information

Wikipedia - Windows Vista

Windows Vista Home Page

Versions

What you are using your computer for will determine which version you require, then you can decide on the upgrade or full version. Upgrade versions will not allow you to run XP on another partition of your hard drive, you may wish to do this to run games or programs that do not run well on Vista.

 Windows Vista Ultimate

All the Vista features plus Bit Locker to encrypt the data on your laptop to keep it from prying eyes if you lose it at the airport.

Vista Ultimate Retail
Vista Ultimate Upgrade
Windows Vista Home Premium

Most people will choose this version which has all the cool features plus Windows Media Center. Good for laptop owners too.

Vista Home Premium Retail
Vista Home Premium Upgrade
Windows Vista Business

No zippy multimedia features but all the useful new network features for the office.

Vista Business Retail
Vista Business Upgrade
Windows Vista Home Basic

For older machines without the video cards horsepower to display Aero.

Vista Home Basic Retail
Vista Home Basic Upgrade
Security Configuration

Tuning Windows Vista security: The firewall

Windows Vista: Features Explained; Security Center

Windows Vista Security and Data Protection Improvements

Troubleshooting & Tips

Installing And Tweaking Windows Vista

OEM vs Retail

To add to the confusion there are actually two non-upgrade versions, OEM and Retail offered by Microsoft.

OEM, less expensive, is only allowed to be sold to system builders or to consumers with a piece of primary hardware (read: CPU, motherboard or hard drive) and has certain licensing differences over Retail including the inability to (legally) transfer the license to new hardware.

Related Do-IT-101 Pages

Building a Web Site

Computer Basics

Internet

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