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Re: Longhorn/Vista Eliminates Another Feature (More Vapourware Bites Dust)

On 6 Nov 2006 22:18:22 -0800, nrballardco@xxxxxxxxx wrote:

> Vista, in its entirety, has become one big stack of application
> updates.  No real improvements to the OS, just lots of bloat.  I could
> add most of Vista's programs to XP_SP2 and have most of the
> functionality of Vista, with better performance.  Internet Explorer 7,
> Windows Media Player 11, Windows Desktop Search, and Windows PowerShell
> (Monad) are all available for Windows XP.  WinFS will be upon release,
> according to earlier announcements from Microsoft.  So why run Vista?
> Maybe so its frosted-glass GUI and ridiculous Sidebar application can
> eat up whatever system resources are left on my PC...

No real improvements to the OS.... you've been listening to your father too
much.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Features_new_to_Windows_Vista

"A new type of folder known as a Shadow Folder has the ability to revert
its entire contents to any arbitrary point in the past. Shadow Folders
utilize Transactional NTFS, a transaction feature for file system
operations, in the NTFS release that will accompany Windows Vista."

"There will also be the ability to save searches as Saved Searches where
opening a folder will execute a specific search automatically and display
the results as a normal folder. These virtual folders are also
distributable via RSS."

Indexing of "Offline Files" via a protocol handler for the CSC (Client-Side
Cache) 

Use of low-priority I/O, a new Vista filesystem feature, to ensure that
indexing does not interfere with user applications. 

Windows Vista can remotely search the index of another Windows Vista or
Longhorn Server machine if the content of the network share being searched
is indexed on the server. 

Combination of indexed and non-indexed search results (including filename
and grep-style searches) into the same view. 

Windows Resource Protection prevents "potentially damaging system
configuration changes"[11], by preventing change to system files and
settings by any process other than Windows Installer. Also changes to
registry by unauthorized software are blocked. 

Protected-Mode IE: Internet Explorer runs in a separate, low-privilege
process, protecting the user from malicious content and security
vulnerabilities, even in ActiveX controls. 

Windows Firewall has been upgraded to support outbound packet filtering and
full IPv6 support. A new MMC-based interface has been introduced which
offers much more advanced control over the firewall.

Session 0 Isolation: Previous versions of Windows ran System services in
the same login session as the locally logged-in user (Session 0). In
Windows Vista, Session 0 is now reserved for these services, and all
interactive logins are done in other sessions.[13] This is intended to help
mitigate a class of exploits of the Windows message-passing system, known
as Shatter attacks. 

Full support for the "NX" (No-Execute) feature of modern processors. This
feature, present as NX (EVP) in AMD's AMD64 processors and as XD (EDB) in
Intel's processors, can flag certain parts of memory as containing data
instead of executable code, which prevents overflow errors from resulting
in arbitrary code execution. 

Address Space Layout Randomization (ASLR) to prevent Return-to-libc buffer
overflow attacks. 

Windows Vista introduces Mandatory Integrity Control to set integrity
levels for processes. A low integrity process cannot access the resources
of a higher integrity process. This feature is being used to enforce
application isolation, where applications in a medium integrity level, such
as all applications running in the standard user context can not hook into
system level processes which run in high integrity level, such as
administrator mode applications but can hook onto lower integrity processes
like Windows Internet Explorer 7.

A new security feature called Windows Service Hardening prevents Windows
services from doing operations on file systems, registry or networks[17]
which they are not supposed to, thereby preventing entry of malware by
piggybacking on system services.

Network Access Protection, (NAP) which makes sure that computers connecting
to a network or communicating over a network conform to a required level of
system health, as has been set by the administrator of the network, has
been upgraded significantly in Windows Vista. 

Windows Vista features a completely re-written audio stack designed to
provide low-latency 32-bit floating point audio and new audio APIs created
by a team including Steve Ball and Larry Osterman.

Windows Vista builds on the Universal Audio Architecture, a new class
driver definition that aims to reduce the need for third-party drivers, and
to increase the overall stability and reliability of audio in Windows.

Windows Vista is the first Windows operating system to include fully
integrated support for speech recognition. 

Windows Vista includes a redesigned print architecture[31], built around
Windows Presentation Foundation.

A significant change is a more complete implementation of IPv6 which is now
supported by all networking components, services, and the user interface.
In IPv6 mode, Windows Vista can use the Link Local Multicast Name
Resolution (LLMNR) protocol to resolve names of hosts on a network which
does not have a DNS server running. 

A new version of the Server Message Block (SMB) protocol is being
introduced with Windows Vista.

Improved memory manager and processes scheduler. Many kernel data
structures and algorithms have been rewritten. Lookup algorithms now run in
constant time, instead of linear time as with previous versions. 

Support for condition variables and reader-writer locks. 

Deadlock Detection Technology is a new technology that will prevent many
common causes of hangs and crashes and determines if a hang is due to a
deadlock condition 

Process creation overhead is reduced by significant improvements to DLL
address-resolving schemes. 

Windows Vista introduces a Protected Process, which differ from usual
processes in the sense that other processes cannot manipulate the state of
such processes, nor can threads from other processes be introduced in
these. Such processes have enhanced access to DRM-functions of Windows
Vista. However, currently, only the applications using Protected Video Path
can create such processes. 

Thread Pools have been upgraded to support multiple pools per process, as
well as to reduce performance overhead using thread recycling. It also
includes Cleanup Groups that allow clean up of pending thread-pool requests
on process shutdown. 

Data Redirection: Also known as data virtualization, this virtualizes the
registry and certain parts of the file system for applications running in
the protected user context. Reads and writes in the HKLM\Software section
of the Registry by user-mode applications while running as a standard user,
as well as to folders such as "Program Files", are "redirected" to the
user's profile. The process of reading and writing on the profile data and
not on the application-intended location is completely transparent to the
application. 

The new Kernel Transaction Manager enables atomic transaction operations
across different types of objects, most significantly file system and
registry operations.[44] 

Support for the PCI Express 1.1 specification, including extended
configuration space and segmentation. PCI Express registers, including
capability registers, are supported, along with save and restore of
configuration data. 

Full support for the ACPI 2.0 specification, and parts of ACPI 3.0[45].
Support for throttling power usage of individual devices is improved. 
Hardware Partitioning supported at hardware level to allow
hardware-enforced virtualization. 

The NTLDR boot loader has been replaced by a more flexible system, with
NTLDR's functionality split between two new components: winload.exe and
Windows Boot Manager[46]. 

Support for peer-to-peer file transfers using Background Intelligent
Transfer Service, known as "Neighbor Casting". 

Windows Vista features a Dynamic System Address Space that allocates
virtual memory and kernel page tables on-demand. It also supports very
large registries. 

Includes enhanced support for Non-Uniform Memory Access (NUMA) and systems
with large memory pages. Windows Vista also exposes APIs for accessing the
NUMA features. 

Memory pages can be marked as read-only, to prevent data corruption. 

New address mapping scheme called Rotate Virtual Address Descriptors (VAD).
It is used for the advanced Video subsystem. 

Swapping in of memory pages and system cache include prefetching and
clustering, to improve performance. 

Performance of Address Translation Buffers has been enhanced. 

Heap layout has been modified to provide higher performance on 64-bit and
Symmetric multiprocessing (SMP) systems. The new heap structure is also
more scalable and has low management overhead, especially for large heaps. 

Windows Vista automatically tunes up the heap layout for improved
fragmentation management. 

Lazy initialization of heap initializes only when required, to improve
performance. 

The Windows Vista memory manager does not have a 64 kb read-ahead cache
limitation unlike previous versions of Windows and can thus improve file
system performance dramatically. 

Transactional NTFS allows multiple file/folder operations to be treated as
a single operation, so that a crash or power failure won't result in
half-completed file writes. Transactions can also be extended to multiple
machines. 

File encryption support superior to that available in Windows XP, which
will make it easier and more automatic to prevent unauthorized viewing of
files on stolen laptops or hard drives. 

File System Mini Filters model which are non-device kernel mode drivers, to
monitor filesystem activity, have been upgraded in Windows Vista. This can
be used by Anti-Virus software. 

Registry notification hooks, introduced in Windows XP, and recently
enhanced in Windows Vista, allow software to participate in registry
related activities in the system. 

Image Mastering API (IMAPI v2) enables applications to burn audio, video,
data or disc images to CD and DVD devices. Windows DVD Maker can burn
DVD-Video discs, while Windows Explorer can burn data on DVDs (DVD±R, DVD±R
DL, DVD±R RW) in addition to DVD-RAM. Packet writing is also supported when
using the UDF file system. There are improvements to Universal Disk Format
file system support; notably, the ability to format and write to UDF
volumes, support for reading UDF 2.60 and writing UDF 2.50, and longer
volume label names. Applications using IMAPI v2 can read, create, mount and
burn ISO files. 

Support of UNIX-style symbolic links[47]. 

File and registry virtualization, a feature that automatically creates
private copies of files that an application can use when it does not have
permission to access the original files. This facilitates stronger file
security and helps applications not written with security in mind to run
under stronger restrictions. 

"Previous Versions", previously known as Volume Shadow Copy in Windows
Server 2003, provides read-only snapshots of files on local or network
volumes from an earlier point in time. A new tab in the Properties dialog
for any file or folder provides users with straightforward access to these
previous versions. 

A new file-based disk image format called Microsoft Windows Imaging Format
(WIM), which can be mounted as a partition, or booted from. An associated
tool called ImageX provides facilities to create and maintain these image
files. 

and on.. and on.. and on..

Yeah, it's *JUST* applicaiton updates, and there has been *NO* improvement
to the underlying OS at all.. right... sure...

Stop listening to your father, kid.  Think for yourself.

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