Microsoft Wiki

Be sure to join our wiki's Discord server by clicking here
Also follow our wiki's Twitter by clicking here

READ MORE

Microsoft Wiki
Register
Advertisement

This is a list of new features included in Windows Vista.

Shell and user interface[]

Windows Aero[]

Certain editions of Windows Vista include a redesigned user interface and visual style, named Windows Aero (Authentic, Energetic, Reflective, and Open). Aero is designed to be cleaner and more aesthetically pleasing than previous Windows versions, including glass-like transparencies and window animations. Windows Aero also features a new default font, Segoe UI, with a slightly larger size, a streamlined style for wizards, and a change in the tone and phrasing of most of the dialogs and control panels.

In addition to the Windows Aero visual style, Windows Vista Home Basic includes an exclusive "Windows Vista Standard" theme which has the same hardware requirements as "Windows Aero", and therefore uses Desktop Window Manager for desktop composition, but does not include the ability to generate live thumbnails of running applications, nor does it allow the transparency of the window frame. As a result, 3D effects and other features associated with live thumbnails are not included with this theme.

Included with all versions, there is a "Windows Vista Basic" theme which does not use desktop composition, and is geared towards lower-end machines that are not able to use Desktop Window Manager; this theme being comparable to Windows XP's Luna theme. Finally Vista includes "Windows Classic" and "Windows Standard" themes which are similar to the classic themes in Windows 2000 and Windows XP. Windows Aero is not available in Windows Vista Home Basic and Starter editions, although Desktop Window Manager is included in Windows Vista Home Basic.

Start menu[]

The Start menu has undergone major changes in Windows Vista, with the taskbar icon no longer labeled "Start"; rather, it has the Windows pearl orb. At the top level, the Start menu, as in Windows XP, has two columns of menu choices. Under the default configuration, the "Run," and "Printers" options do not appear. However, those items can be added to the Start menu. One major addition is a search box where users may begin typing immediately. The contents of the Start menu itself are indexed and searchable, besides the global search index. If indexing is turned on, the search box returns results on-the-fly as users type into it. This allows the Start menu to act as a fast and powerful application launcher. The Start menu search also doubles as the Run command from previous versions of Windows; simply typing any command will execute it. The Run command can also be added separately to the right column in the Start menu.

Another major change to the Start menu in Windows Vista is that it no longer presents the "All programs" menu as a horizontally expanding cascading list which utilizes the entire screen space. Rather, it is presented as a nested folder view with a fixed size. The list of submenus and single items appears over the left column contents with a Back button below it. Submenus expand and collapse vertically within the list when single-clicked, in a tree-like fashion similarly to Windows Explorer. Single items appear at the top and folders appear at the bottom. However over a folder does not open it, it has to be clicked.

A limitation of the new Start menu is that subfolders inside the All Programs menu cannot be opened simply by searching or double clicking. Also, as more programs are installed, a vertical scroll bar appears between the two columns. A dynamically changing icon showing the user's display picture by default is present at the top of the right column. It changes as users hover over any other item to reflect that item's icon. The Power button's action is configurable through Power options in the Control Panel, though the default setting is to put the computer into Sleep mode. Users can quickly lock their user account by pressing the Lock button. Additional power and account related actions are listed in a sub-menu which appears when the small arrow next to the Lock button is clicked.

Like Windows XP, Windows Vista allows users to switch back to the previous version of Start menu, first introduced in Windows 95.

Windows Explorer[]

Arrangement and visualization[]

The leftward Task Pane of Windows XP has been replaced by an upward Command Bar that provides the same contextual tasks and file operation commands. The Navigation Pane can now be enabled with these commands and tasks always available; in Windows XP, it was necessary to switch between the Navigation Pane and the Task Pane — both were not available simultaneously. The Navigation Pane itself has been updated to host optional Favorite Links. The menu bar is hidden by default, but it can be displayed with the ALT key. The address bar has been modified to present a breadcrumbs view, which shows the full path to the current location; clicking any location in the breadcrumb hierarchy navigates to that location, which eliminates the need to go back multiple times or up multiple directories—the Up button is removed accordingly. It is also possible to navigate to any subfolder of any parent folder of the current hierarchy by using the arrow between folders. Groups of items can now be contracted and expanded, and group headings can be clicked on to select all items belonging in specific groups. Groups additionally now feature the number of items in each group. Multiple groups of files can also be selected by clicking each group header while holding down CTRL. Windows Explorer also sorts files on-the-fly automatically as they are renamed or pasted.

File operations[]

When copying or moving files, Windows Explorer now displays the destination path and the source path, the number of items being transferred, and the transfer speed of items as megabytes per second (MB/s) (in addition to displaying a estimated completion time and the names of files being transferred as previous versions of Windows did). Conflicts now do not terminate file operations. If a conflict occurs with only one file, the user will be presented with options for resolution. If a conflict occurs with multiple files, the user can either apply the resolution to every file to avoid conflicts with other files in the operation or to only a single file (if two or more files have the same name, for example, users can rename the source file and retain both the destination file and the source file; in previous versions of Windows, the only options were to either replace the destination file or cancel the operation). If an external data storage device is disconnected while files are being moved or copied, the user can retry the copy or move without restarting the same file operation from the very beginning; this gives the user an option to reconnect the external data storage device without loss of data.

Additionally, if a file is in use by another application during a deletion, move, or rename operation, Windows Explorer introduces a new IFileIsInUse API that allows developers to inform of the application with an open handle on the file, which can provide users with options to close the application, switch to it to finish working on the file, or to terminate its open handle on the file.

If a user does not have permission to access an object, a new dialog box with an option to assign permissions appears (Click Continue to get access to this folder). If the user has been denied access to the object even after clicking Continue, a message with a hyperlink to the Security tab belonging to the corresponding object appears so that a user with the required permissions and privileges can change ownership of, and access to the object. In previous versions of Windows the user was only informed that access was denied, with no immediate, visible option for conflict resolution.

Icons[]

Icons in Windows Vista are visually more realistic than illustrative. Icons are scalable in size up to 256 × 256 pixels. Required icon sizes are 16 × 16, 32 × 32, and 256 × 256; optional sizes are 24 × 24, 48 × 48, 64 × 64, 96 × 96, and 128 × 128. Icons now display thumbnails depicting the actual contents of files. New media overlays are available for photo, track, and video thumbnails, which are now distinguished by an overlay of the icon of the application assigned as the default for the respective file types. File icon viewing modes are Extra Large, Large, Medium, Small, List, Details, and Tiles. It is possible to transition between icon viewing modes with an incremental slider or by holding down the CTRL key and scrolling with the mouse scroll wheel. To reduce the size of large icons, icons may be stored as compressed PNGs; to maintain backward compatibility with earlier versions of Windows, only larger sized icons can use lossless PNG.

See also[]

External links[]

Advertisement