Jul 13, 2006 01:09 PM
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"Dad"
"Yes sweetheart. What's up?"
"What is Vista?"
"Vista?"
"Yes. I mean Windows Vista.."
"Oh Windows Vista. It is an operating system."
"Like XP?"
"Yes. Vista is the next generation OS from Microsoft. It is what everyone is rooting for."
"But why do we still have XP on our PC?"
"Well, Vista is not yet released. We will probably get it in October or November 2006"
"Is it going to be better than XP?"
"Of course. It is coming five years after XP's release. It has got to be better."
"What is new in Vista dad?"
"Hmm let me think about it. For starters there is this 'Aero' interface which is semi transperant and
ultra cool to look at."
"Really? What does it do?"
"Eh? No honey. It doesn't do anything. It is just a prettier way of organizing the icons
and programs on the desktop - and of course the navigation in Windows."
"So it looks great but there are no additional features?"
"No. It is not like that. For instance, if you drag a window in Aero, it becomes transperant and you
see all the icons in the background."
"Wow"
"Yep. Isn't it great?"
"Interesting dad. I can't wait to see that feature on our PC."
"Ah! There is a problem honey. Our PC may not be able to run this feature with the current
configuration. Looks like we need a better video card to use the Aero interface."
"Oh. So we can't have Vista?"
"We sure can. Only, we will not be able to use the Aero feature. That is all. Rest of the features
are available."
"What are the other features of Vista Dad?"
"Ok. They have this really cool Internet Explorer update. It supports tabbed browsing now
and comes with a popup blocker."
"But we use Firefox dad and it has all these features even now!"
"That is right honey. But IE today doesn't have these features. So in future we need not download
firefox separately. We can work with IE itself."
"Great. So we have Adblock and other such features also?"
"Ah no. I don't think Adblock will be available in IE 7."
"So we can continue to use Firefox?"
"I suppose so. I think Vista will support Firefox too."
"What else is there in Vista dad?"
"Let me see - There are exciting new multimedia tools such as DVD maker etc."
"Oh... But there are many such tools available on the net dad even today!"
"That is true. But you don't need to download any third party software. All these will be part of the
OS."
"Ok."
"No. Wait. There is more. The OS is more secure than XP. In fact it is for this reason that the
release of Vista has been postponed."
"So we can't be phished again dad?"
"Ah... Phishing will continue dear. We need to be vigilant about it whenever we are browsing.
Though IE 7 has a phishing filter, I don't think it can prevent everything."
"So what is this security all about?"
"Security is not just about preventing phishing. Right? Let us say - it is more difficult for anyone to
break into your computer and plant a malware if you are using Vista."
"But Norton's Internet Doctor protects us from virtually any such attack even today!"
"Yeah! but again there are some system level security goofups in XP which we don't understand.
They are fixed in Vista."
"So you are saying there are some security enhancements in Vista but you don't know what they
are or how they will affect us."
"Looks like it honey."
"What else?"
"You are still not convinced baby?"
"No."
"Alright. Vista offers enhanced search capabilities."
"Like?"
"Like - say you can search for something and it can look into your emails also along with the files
on the computer."
"But Google Desktop Search does just that dad."
"Yeah. But Google Desktop Search cannot handle a search request like - Find out the phone
numbers of all the people I have emailed in the last one week!"
"Whoa! Can Vista handle that?"
"The beauty of WinFS my dear. This relational database based file management system can
handle inter file dependencies."
"Err?"
"I mean - whenever we create a file - say a Word document - it has to be stored somewhere on
the hard disk. Right?"
"Right"
"Every OS - like XP or DOS or Unix, has its own method of storing these files. Whenever you
request for a file, it has to know where the file is on the disk and how to get all the contents of the
file."
"Yes."
"This is done by the File Management System of the OS."
"Ok."
"Windows XP uses NTFS - New Technology File System. Windows versions till Me (Millennium)
used MS-DOS's favorite FAT - File Allocation Table system. Unix used Unix File System. Don't
frown - You will anyway be reading about all these next year in your class."
"Ok!"
"WinFS is basically an enhanced version of NTFS. In fact it is built on NTFS. Think of it as a
wrapper around NTFS which provides relational capabilities - stored in a database file
separately."
"So you can search for phone numbers of all the people you have emailed in the last week?"
"Yes. You got it."
"Can I search for something like - I need the website or Yahoo profile IDs of all the people in this
group photo of Graduate of 2006, Anna University, Chennai?"
"Yes. That is the beauty of WinFS"
"This is truly amazing dad. I believe this is the single most important factor of Vista."
"USP"
"USP?"
"Unique Selling Proposition - an economics term. Basically it refers to the single most
differentiating factor of any commodity which works in its favor to drive up the demand for that
commodity."
"Ok. So the USP of Vista is WinFS?"
"Was"
"What?"
"I mean the USP was WinFS. But I have read a report last night that WinFS is shelved."
"Oh but why?"
"No idea. Looks like they want to merge some functionality of WinFS with the next version of
ADO.NET. But it is not clear to me why they couldn't put it in Vista."
"So Vista will be based on NTFS?"
"Looks like it."
"So you are saying - Vista is nothing but a glassy - splashy - colorful - snazzy - graphics intensive
- video RAM demanding - skin or theme sitting on the top of Windows XP?"
"My God! That is a very accurate description of Vista from what I have heard."
"Dad"
"Yeah sweetheart"
"We will still buy it - right?"
"We will have to. Don't we mock at people who still use Windows Me? Do you want to be in their
shoes?"
"No"
"There"
