Microsoft has
released beta 1 of its Windows Vista operating system.
The software, formerly known under its codename Longhorn, is initially being
made available to a select group of 10,000 technical testers via Microsoft's
technical beta programme, a company spokeswoman told
vnunet.com.
It will then be made available to about half a million users and developers
through Microsoft's
MSDN developer network
and the
Technet programme
for IT staff.
The Vista beta has been offered to developers and corporate IT departments to
allow them to test how the software interacts with other systems and
applications inside their organisation.
Although the test version does not yet include the final graphics and other
features that will be most visible for end users, it does offer a view of new
technologies under the hood.
These include the Indigo web services technology that
is now renamed Windows Communication Foundation, and the
Avalon graphics engine which has been rebranded Windows
Presentation Foundation.
Windows Vista is scheduled for release late next year. A second beta is
expected sometime in early 2006.
Microsoft has also released test versions of Internet Explorer 7 and an early
beta of Longhorn Server, the next-generation server operating system that will
replace Windows Server 2003.
Organisations intending to switch from Windows XP to Vista should limit their
testing to the software's APIs, and not attempt to test new features or their
functions, according to Michael Silver, research vice president with
Gartner Research.
"You should wait at least until beta 2, if not longer, before beginning
testing in earnest," he said.
Companies planning to jump from older versions of Windows directly to Vista
have less time, Silver warned.
Support from independent software vendors for older operating systems is
likely to start waning by 2007, and Microsoft is scheduled to stop all bug fix
support for Windows 2000 by mid-2010.
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