The epoch-making system revolution: Commemorating the 5th anniversary of Vista's release

  

Now, with its excellent user experience, leading innovation and fast execution efficiency, Win7 has already surpassed Windows XP and other operating systems, becoming the market share with the largest market share. . However, behind the scenery, who can remember Windows Vista?

Five years ago, Microsoft officially released Windows Vista for individual users. This epoch-making operating system, which cost tens of billions of dollars and invested 10,000 engineers and has been developed over five years, contains many innovative features and contains a lot of innovative technologies, which have a profound impact on the future.
Commemorating the 5th Anniversary of Vista Release

I. Birth

Some employees of Microsoft like to ski. Whistler and Blackcomb are two large ski resorts in British Columbia, Canada, and Longhorn is just a bar between the two mountains.

Just before the official completion of Windows XP (Whistler), Microsoft announced that it will begin the development of the next-generation operating system Blackcomb, and will release a transitional version of Longhorn around 2003.

In WinHEC2002, Microsoft announced that it will include new program interfaces, graphics architecture, network technology and storage technology. It is clear that its positioning has undergone major changes —— from the transitional version into an important version.

Since then, some unfortunately leaked versions of Longhorn have appeared on the web, including the first innovations or features such as WinFS, Avalon, Indigo, Desktop Window Manager, and Windows Sidebar.

At the same time, due to Windows XP's frequent security vulnerabilities and vulnerability to malware, computer viruses, cache overflows, etc., Microsoft proposed the "trusted computing" concept, requiring the whole company to work hard, Work together to solve security problems.

Microsoft hopes to give priority to the security of Windows XP and Windows Server 2003, so Microsoft has invested some research and development efforts to develop Windows XP SP2. It was finally launched in August 2004 and includes an enhanced version of the firewall, Internet Explorer 6, and new features such as data execution protection, Windows Security Center, Bluetooth technology and improved Wi-Fi support. This caused Longhorn's development plan to be delayed.

New resource managers, new installation interfaces, download managers, virtual folders (libraries) and more are on the Longhorn. With the addition of WinFS, Microsoft hopes to rewrite various system components and office products Office with new data storage technology.

In May 2003, WinHEC2003 was held, and Microsoft announced some details of Longhorn. Among them, the Aero interface is a highlight, it is a newly designed user interface, including Windows Aero (matte glass appearance), Windows Flip3D, real-time thumbnails, new fonts and so on.

As more and more technologies or features are added to Longhorn, the development plan has become elusive and the development team has lost its way.

At the time, Microsoft vice president and director of Windows development Jim · Alchin also strongly hopes that the company can restart the development process as soon as possible, because developers can integrate various functional features into the system kernel, and the final product Lack of a clear goal, Longhorn's development has been "completely finished".

On WinHEC2004, Microsoft released LonghornBuild4074, the last public release of LonghornBuild before the restart plan, which provides a new system icon (WindowsAero) and a new system font (SegoeUI).

Microsoft later announced that Avalon and Indigo will be integrated into WinFX (later .NET Framework 3.0, the next-generation program interface) and support Windows XP and Windows Server 2003. WinFS is removed and placed separately afterwards. It is a pity that it only announced a stoppage after releasing a Beta version.

In August 2004, Jim · Alchin sent an email to employees, announcing the restart of the development process, the code base will be based on WindowsServer2003SP1, not WindowsXP. At the same time, he also carried out reforms drastically, and strived to make the development plan complete faster.

Subsequently, Microsoft revealed information about DirectX10 and the Windows Experience Index, and internally tested various Longhorn independent versions, such as Starter, Home, Business, and Ultimate.

On WinHEC2005, Microsoft released LonghornBuild5048, which for the first time uses the WindowsAero interface. However, due to the significant reduction in functionality compared to the previous version, many people do not recognize it. Some people think that this is a retrogression.

In July 2005, Microsoft announced the official name of Longhorn, Vista. The word Vista comes from the Latin Vedere, which contains the meaning of "Vision", "Looking forward", and is in line with its slogan "to bring clarity to your world". Jim · Alchin is also excited to say: "Vista outlines a beautiful picture for the function of this new system, which can maximize the imagination of people and ignite the passion of users. & rdquo;

Beta features, Vista's features gradually become clear, the new version of the resource manager, index-based search, parental control, WinFX, sidebar, new media center, new version of MediaPlayer, new version of WindowsMovieMaker, WindowsDefender, WindowsMail (OutlookExpress), Windows Calendar, Windows Photo Gallery, New Internet Explorer, Performance Tuning Tool, XML Paper Specification (XPS), Enhanced Speech Recognition, WindowsAero, Game Management Center, DirectX10, ReadyBoost, BitLocker, User Account Control, etc. Exciting new features have been added.

During the RC phase, Microsoft made many improvements to Vista based on various feedbacks from testers, and eliminated many bugs. The response was enthusiastic.

Microsoft announced on November 8, 2006 that the Vista development plan was officially completed.

Second, redemption

Microsoft has high hopes that Windows Vista will not be able to quickly occupy the market as Microsoft wants. Due to its high hardware requirements, high memory footprint, poor backward compatibility and other issues, it was rated as “flashy”. At the same time, user account control originally designed to improve security is also criticized. For a time, its reputation fell to the bottom, and even sneered by competitors.

In order to enhance the stability and compatibility of the system, Microsoft released Windows Vista SP1 in January 2008. Although various problems have been greatly improved in this version, but its negative image has long been deeply rooted in people's hearts, has been unable to return to heaven.

In 2008, Microsoft conducted an interesting experiment called "MojaveExperiment". In the experiment, Microsoft showed testers a next-generation operating system code-named "Mojave" and asked them to compare this with Windows Vista. Unexpectedly, the testers highly recognized Mojave, while Windows Vista is not recognized, who knows that Mojave is Windows Vista.

Perhaps this is why Windows 7, which is not so different, can be quickly popularized. Many times users' perceptions of Windows Vista are artificially distorted and artificially affected. For example, the memory usage problem that is criticized is actually a misunderstanding of SuperFetch and other memory management technologies.

In April 2009, Microsoft released Windows Vista SP2, which not only fixed some vulnerabilities, but also added some new features to improve Windows Vista.

Later, Microsoft relied on the release of Windows 7 to wipe out the company's image and emerge from the shadow of failure.

Third, meaning

Although Windows Vista did not have a large-scale popularity in the end, it has made great contributions to various products of Microsoft in the future, such as the popular operating system Windows 7, namely Develop on the basis of it; for example, SQLServer2008, which incorporates some features of WinFS.

Windows Vista is Microsoft's first operating system that provides both 64-bit and 32-bit support; it is the first operating system that only supports installation on NTFS partitions; it is the first to highly value the user experience. Operating system...

Now that it has been officially released for 5 years, it is time to enter the History Museum. However, we should not forget its great contribution to us, to businesses, and to Microsoft. It is a huge revolution in the history of personal operating systems.

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