RC1 may be sent to reviewers as early as today

August 29, 2006 -- Reviewers will soon be getting their hands on the first release candidate of Windows Vista, which means that Microsoft Corp. could be on target to deliver the operating system to business customers before the end of the year.

According to sources familiar with the company's plans, Microsoft will be giving product reviewers access to Windows Vista Release Candidate 1 (RC1) as soon as today, with the code set to drop publicly as early as Sept. 5. Microsoft has maintained it would have Windows Vista RC1 available by the end of September.

When Microsoft makes available the first release candidate of a product, the software is in its final stages of being ready to head to the manufacturer. The goal of making RC1 available is to show testers as close to a final version of the product as possible so Microsoft can identify and address last-minute bugs before putting the product on CDs.

"It's like throwing one of those roach bombs in an empty apartment and see what comes out," said Joe Wilcox, an analyst at Jupiter Research, of the RC1 testing process. "They're looking [to see] if there are any bugs hiding in the walls somewhere."

Wilcox said it's likely Windows Vista will have at least two release candidates. If this is the case, the company could make its target deadline of releasing Vista to business customers in November and to consumers in January.

However, if Vista requires a third release candidate because of any problems or bugs that come up during the final testing period, "no way" will Microsoft hit its current deadlines, he said.

With the last major upgrade to Windows, Windows XP, it was "not quite" two months between RC1 and the product's release to manufacturing, Wilcox said. If Microsoft releases Windows Vista RC1 on Sept. 5 or thereabouts, the release to manufacturing -- and a release to business customers -- could happen as soon as early November. Microsoft has said it will release Vista to business customers in November, but has not specified the exact date.

Resellers typically need about six weeks to get the operating system installed and tested on PCs before putting those machines on the market, so if Windows Vista makes it to manufacturing by the end of November, it could hit its January release date for consumers.

Microsoft has not specified when in January Vista will make its debut, though some observers have speculated that the company may want to make a big splash with Vista at the annual Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas. CES 2007 is scheduled for Jan. 8-11.

Microsoft in March pushed back the release date of Windows Vista to November for business users and January for consumers. However, some analysts suspect that the release may slip further, and some Wall Street analysts have even changed revenue expectations based on this assumption.

(IDG News Service)

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Microsoft today released Release Candidate 1 (RC1) of Windows Vista, a significant milestone on the road to the launch of the new operating system, which has been in the works for five years.

The RC1 version of Vista offers a long list of operational and performance improvements over the Beta 2 version, including faster performance, improved driver support, an easier-to-use networking interface and a variety of changes to the "fit and finish" of the operating system, said testers.

In addition, the User Account Control (UAC) security feature, which has been frequently maligned by beta testers because of its intrusiveness, has been reined in so that it does not intrude as much on the user experience.

Microsoft has said that it could ship Windows Vista to consumers as early as January 2007. Industry observers said that Microsoft expects to wrap up the final version of Windows Vista by Oct. 25. That's consistent with Microsoft's earlier projection to release Vista to enterprise customers this November, which was reaffirmed earlier this week by Greg Sullivan, Microsoft's group product manager for Windows.

The release of a stable RC1 is an important step toward that timetable, because it will get the new operating system into the hands of millions of new users, helping Microsoft track down bugs, and ensure that Windows Vista works with as wide a range of hardware as possible.

Toward that end, Microsoft today is rolling out a sweeping plan to get RC1 into the hands of testers.

RC1 will be distributed to 20,000 users already in the technical beta program, 500,000 MSDN and TechNet subscribers, and 1.5 million people who were in the Beta 2 Customer Preview Program (CPP), or public beta test. Microsoft intends to significantly widen the distribution by opening the door to new CPP testers. Information about the public beta test will be made available at a later time.

In addition, the software company has made arrangements to distribute RC1 DVDs as "cover mounts" on magazines, so that magazine readers can install the latest version as well. According to Sullivan, RC1 will be the most widely distributed pre-release version of Vista to date.

RC1 will work until May 31, 2007, when it will time out and no longer function. Microsoft will continue to issue updates and patches to RC1 until it is released to manufacturing, at which time the operating system is considered finished, and the manufacturing and distribution process will begin.

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Yes, RC1 is finally here. And now the company awaits feedback from one of its largest test programs ever. Is it solid enough to meet the announced ship dates? We tell you what we think.

Sept. 2

It's been a long time coming, but Windows Vista Release Candidate 1 is finally here. As Microsoft starts to collect feedback from a broad spectrum of users in one of its largest test programs ever, the company will soon be in a position to decide whether the product is solid enough to meet announced ship dates of November for enterprise customers and January 2007 for consumers.

Earlier this week, I started using Vista build 5568, a version that Microsoft says should be virtually indistinguishable from the actual RC1 code. Since recent Vista revisions have been focusing on improving performance, compatibility, and stability rather than adding features, there's not a lot to highlight that's truly new. Instead, I've compiled a walkthrough of 100 screen shots recapping what Vista looks like from top to bottom.

The most pressing question for RC1 is whether it shows that Vista is good enough to ship. In my experience so far, it's getting a lot closer, but it's not quite there yet. Microsoft representatives acknowledge that the term "Release Candidate" might be slightly confusing, as it implies a non-zero probability that the code might be what actually goes into production—which clearly isn't the case for RC1.

With build 5568, I've encountered recurring problems when resuming from sleep, anomalous network behavior, and some performance issues. That said, for the most part, the experience is remarkably good—enough so that I'm thinking I may finally be able to start using Vista as a production platform. Most of the flaws I've encountered are minor nuisances rather than showstoppers.

Some of the improvements RC1 offers over beta 2 are substantial. Installation proceeds much more quickly—about 30 minutes on a newly-formatted partition, versus an hour or so in the past. My hardware devices have all been recognized during or immediately after the installation process. (Microsoft claims to have dramatically improved hardware support lately, particularly for wireless devices, printers, Serial ATA controls, and Media Center tuners.)

The UAC (User Account Control) security feature has been tuned to be far less intrusive—it can no longer steal focus from an active application, for example—and there's an easy way to turn it off if you find it unbearable. RC1 also lets non-administrator users install ActiveX controls approved by corporate IT.

Bundled applications like Windows Media Player 11 that were flaky in earlier builds have so far proved solid. Of a few dozen third-party software packages, only a couple have shown overt compatibility issues.

Vista now exhibits a level of interface polish and consistency that wasn't present in earlier versions. In some cases, it seems like minor features whose capabilities weren't quite solidified have simply been removed.

On the whole, I've found performance and stability in the builds leading to RC1 to be tolerable—and dramatically better than beta 2—but not yet what I'd expect from a release-quality product. Resuming a machine from sleep is especially slow, and I sometimes encounter cases where the Windows shell lags.

Although Vista doesn't explicitly include a lot of the core features that Microsoft initially touted, from the WinFS file system to the NGSCB (Next Generation Secure Computing Base) security infrastructure, it nevertheless incorporates a substantial portion of their capabilities and is clearly a step beyond Windows XP in many ways. But whether it's really ready to ship in the next couple of months will depend on what the larger ecosystem of PC software and hardware developers, system OEMs, enterprise customers, and consumers has to say about its experiences with RC1. If you're running RC1, tell us about your experience in the forums.

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Microsoft seems to be on track to release the next version of Windows on schedule

Early feedback from testers already using Windows Vista Release Candidate 1 report that the OS is more stable than expected, which bodes well for Microsoft's plan to have Vista out according to its current schedule.

Microsoft has said since March it will release Windows Vista to business customers in November, and consumers in January 2007. Though many have suspected the release will slip further, testers now say there's a good chance the company will meet its goal if the condition of RC1 is any indication.

"Overall I think Vista is looking very good at this point. ... I think all the worries of Vista slipping went out the window," said Brandon LeBlanc, a writer for LonghornBlogs, via e-mail.

LeBlanc said that Microsoft has made performance and stabilization tweaks that testers requested after Beta 2, and the latest test version of the OS--which could be the final one before Vista is released to manufacturing--is solid enough for regular use.

"RC1 is quite usable for everyday work, as I am currently doing myself," he said.

LeBlanc said Vista is so far along in RC1, he does not think another release candidate will be required before final changes are made and the OS is sent off for manufacturing. The previous major client release of Windows, Windows XP, had two release candidates before it shipped to manufacturers.

Bugs Remain

To no one's surprise, however, there are still bugs to be ironed out before Vista will be ready for its final release.

LeBlanc said the OS needs some work in terms of its user interface, for example. The test version "does lack some of the UI polish we were expecting at this point," he said. In Vista, Microsoft has completely revamped Windows' user interface with a new 3D interface called Aero.

Another Vista tester, Andrew Brust, chief of new technology for New York consulting firm Twentysix New York, said the latest test release of Vista feels more "grown up," even on hardware that is not necessarily optimized for the OS.

"Besides the fact that it's just a really nice OS, it feels very sprightly even on hardware that wasn't designed for it," he said.

Even trivial applications such as Solitaire and Minesweeper games have a next-generation look and feel in Windows Vista RC1, Brust said. "It's a trivial example, but it shows a certain attention to detail [on the part of Microsoft]," he said.

Harrison Hoffman, another Vista beta tester and one of the writers of the LiveSide blog, agreed that the latest test version of the OS could be used as a person's main desktop OS, even though it definitely needs some fit and finish before final release.

"Although it might not be quite ready for prime time, if you really wanted to, you could use this build as your primary operating system, but be prepared for a few applications and devices to not work correctly," he said via e-mail. "The OS does not hang, lag or crash as consistently as it used to. The performance has been greatly improved."

However, both LeBlanc and Hoffman noted that Windows Vista is still lacking driver support, a particularly sore subject because Vista has been billed as an OS in which devices will work as soon as you connect them without any further hassle, Hoffman said.

"The philosophy of Vista has been to have things 'just work' when you connect them and right now, some things just do not," he said. "Obviously this issue is going to get better with time and as hardware manufacturers work closer with Microsoft to remedy these problems."

LeBlanc sized up the hardware driver situation in Windows Vista RC1 this way: "Some work, some dona??t," he said. "Heck, Microsoft doesna??t even have Vista drivers for some of their own hardware, including their new LifeCams."

Twentysix New York's Brust called driver compatibility Microsoft's "biggest impediment" to getting Vista out in time. "Driver compatibility will be key for them," he said.

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Four improvements to Windows Vista deployment

There are three things that are certain in the life of a network administrator: death, taxes and deployment. Particularly with Windows Vista just around the corner now, you're probably beginning to think about how you will roll out the operating system to all of the desktops in your organization.

Fortunately, the tools and services behind Windows deployments right out of the box have improved: indeed, it's possible to roll out desktops very easily with new deployment enhancements without resorting to more sophisticated and expensive management solutions. In this article, I'll take a look at four deployment improvements in Vista, and how they benefit you.


Modularization

One of the big engineering pushes Microsoft made during the development of Windows Vista was to make the operating system more modular -- meaning the components of the operating system are separate and somewhat interchangeable. While also improving the usability experience -- customers can select only the pieces they want to be installed without having to go for the entire OS -- the modularization also helps system administrators manage their deployments.


For example, drivers, service packs, updates and localization (languages) are all much easier to incorporate into Vista installations. It's possible to customize components both before and after installation to a degree that wasn't possible with previous versions of Windows. Patching, updating, and security vulnerability mitigation is easier because areas of the operating system are independent of others, meaning less breakage and less testing required to get an update out the door.


If you are an administrator for a larger, global network, you'll appreciate that Microsoft has made Windows Vista language-agnostic. Languages, including English, are treated as optional components from the required OS code, which allows you to add and remove them from installations and images very easy.


Windows Imaging Format

Part of the benefit of the modular improvements to Windows components is the introduction of the new Windows Imaging Format (WIM), a hardware-independent format that stores images of the operating system. The premise of WIM is make images many-to-one in nature, meaning multiple images can be contained within one WIM file.
Since Windows is so modular, 95% of the base operating system can be replicated among any number of images, so Microsoft itself can ship just one binary image for each processor architecture -- x86 and x64 -- to everyone in the channel. Additionally, the sizes of each of the image files are reduced using single-instance storage techniques and enhanced compression.


Perhaps the best usability improvement of the WIM format is the ability to edit the image offline using standard file management tools like Windows Explorer. You can add files and folder to an image. For example, instead of the painful driver addition process in Remote Installation Services (RIS), you can simply drop drivers directly into a WIM-based image and have them automatically present. Best of all, you don't need to create independent images for each edit you make -- the additions, modifications and deletions you make can co-exist without problem in one image, reducing management burden.

Windows PE

Windows Pre Environment, or Windows PE, is an execution environment designed to assist in installing and troubleshooting operating system installations. Rather than the old blue-background, text-based installation screen with previous versions of NT, Windows PE comes in graphical format and contains a full complement of tools to assist with getting Windows Vista installed on a drive.


The big win with Windows PE is that standard Windows network drivers work with it out of the box -- no hunting for special NDIS drivers only for network deployment use. Additionally, it has a built-in firewall to protect the operating system in its most vulnerable state, being partially installed, and the ability to insert drivers from any sort of removable media into the session.


You might recall the frustration of only being able to add a driver by hitting F6 at the right moment of Setup and then having the driver only on a floppy disk. Windows PE eliminates this annoyance.


Windows Deployment Services

Windows Deployment Services (WDS) is the next generation of Windows 2000 and Windows Server 2003's RIS. It will release with Windows Server 2003 Service Pack 2 and is the only supported method of deploying Windows Vista over the network, so if you want to stream Vista images to desktops and notebooks over the net, you'll need to upgrade your RIS servers to that service pack level. WDS supports both x86 and x64 images as well.


Like RIS, WDS uses the Preboot Execution Environment (PXE) capabilities of most modern BIOSes and network interface cards to load a session of Windows PE. Windows PE then presents a menu to the user consisting of all the appropriate image and configuration options available on the WDS machine. The user selects a target, and the image-in WIM format, of course-is laid onto the disk of the target machine.

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