Vista Tips and Tweaks, Vista Tips, Vista Tutorials, Vista SP1

It really bugs me sometimes that Microsoft imposes artificial limitations on Windows versions because they think features are out of scope. Case in point is Windows Server 2008. Now, there is no earthly reason why WS2008 can’t support Bluetooth right out of the box. An yet, because someone on the Server team decided that servers don’t use Bluetooth, if you’re one of the thousands of people who use WS2008 as a workstation, you’re SOL. Think just installing your Bluetooth drivers, or enabling the “Wireless LAN Services” feature will do it? Think again.

Windows Vista Experience... Safe, easier, reliable and versatile. Microsoft is welcoming users to the Windows Vista experience, a website focused on Service Pack 1 for the latest version of the Windows client.

In previous installments of this series, I discussed the virtues of a clean Vista install, some useful User Account Control workarounds, top tools for troubleshooting, and the wisdom of shutting off Windows system services. Today’s fifth and final installment is a little different from its predecessors, in that it focuses not so much on fixing what might be broken, but rather on taking advantage of a feature in Windows Vista that has the potential to transform the way you work.

I've had a number of discussions over the past week over customer support and downgrade rights to Windows XP from Windows Vista, so here are a few points that may help clear things up.

One session, says the current list, will focus on battery life -- presumably batteries in notebooks first of all, but also for other mobile devices Microsoft hopes to get Windows 7 into."Windows 7 provides advances for building energy-efficient applications," says the write-up. "In this session we will discuss how to leverage new Windows infrastructure to reduce application power consumption and efficiently schedule background tasks and services.

Alex Eckelberry of Sunbelt Software vents, intelligently, about Windows Vista’s UAC conundrum:

UAC could certainly have been handled better. It does something the security industry has been well aware of for a long time — it creates the “cry wolf” problem of popup fatigue (people turn off or ignore the popups after awhile). Vista is more secure than XP, despite what others might say, but it still gets infected. Since over 80% of all infections are based on social engineering, the popups should focus on that weak point. If UAC targeted the key areas where people run into trouble (as opposed to harassing the user on inane actions), it would be far more helpful and potentially make a really significant impact on infection rates.

Even though SP1 for Windows Vista was released to manufacturing in February 2008, and the gold bits of the service pack began being available to the general public in March, Microsoft is still issuing updates for the RTM version of its latest Windows client.It is the case of a compatibility and reliability update for Vista RTM, re-released on May 21, 2008, well after Microsoft wrapped up with Service Pack 1.

We've been talking with a lot of organizations about what they need most from an optimized desktop experience, and we've been making great progress in delivering against those needs. I want to take this opportunity to share details on the Windows Optimized Desktop Scenarios and highlight some news. If you've been reading this blog regularly, you will have seen updates on the work we're doing with the Optimized Desktop.

A video is making the rounds showing how Vista SP1 has significantly improved Vista's immensely annoying User Account Control (UAC). But there appears to be less to the improvement than meets the eye --- hardly any changes were made to UAC in SP1, and it remains a very big Vista annoyance. Microsoft blogger Michael Kleef has made a video that he says illustrates how much better UAC is under SP1 than before SP1. It very nicely shows that when you create a new folder in Program Files, you only need to go through one UAC prompt under Vista SP1, rather than four previously.

Network Access Protection (NAP) is one of the few features that were actually added to Windows XP SP3. However, the management of the policy enforcement platform present by default in both Windows Vista and Windows Server 2008 is not as streamlined on XP SP3 as it is in the latest server and client operating systems. In Vista for example all that end users need to do is start the service through the NAP Client Configuration MMC (napclcfg.msc).