| Microsoft Windows Vista CTP Build 5270: An In-Depth Look | Today's Top Stories | ||||||||||||
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Page 1 of 6 (Review) - A while back, when Microsoft announced its decision to no longer release a monthly CTP for Vista, we were a bit worried, since we wanted to follow-up on the latest developments of Microsoft's next-gen. operating system (though Microsoft promised to update current versions via critical updates). To Microsoft’s credit, it has kept its word and has released an update sooner than we had anticipated, and needless to say, the changes in this release are substantial. Related Articles: Installation: The installation is the standard 2GB+ DVD variety and takes a long time. The good thing about the installation is that now you have two progress bars. The first one is labeled to the effect that user input will be required till this bar has fully progressed. The second bar then resumes the process, and this is where Vista’s setup will tell you that your input is no longer required. All you have to do now is wait until the installation process is completed, and delve right into it. According to our test results, it took approximately an hour before 5270 was fully installed. We were quite surprised by the amount of disk space the installer required. It needs a minimum of 8GB+ of free disk space, which goes on to show Microsoft's capitalization of cheap storage. Personally, we think that 8GB for a mere OS is a bit too much to ask, but considering Vista is still in Beta, maybe the required disk space will trickle down in the final version. It might even go up, so if you have a 40GB hard disk, be prepared to spare 20 percent of it just for the OS. The upgrade option is currently available only if you have Windows XP with SP2 (a service release we personally detest so we did a fresh install), or if you have a previous build of Windows Vista installed. We didn’t have that either. When making a fresh install, it will not format the drive but will simply move all current Windows files to a folder labeled windows.old (quite possibly, it simply renames the Windows folder to that). The downside to this is that during the boot-up process, you will see both options for the OS, and thus you won't be getting a clean and thorough install, which is a pity to say the least. You can, however, change this by editing the Advanced System Properties, but unlike in Windows XP, where you can create modifications and change the OS name altogether, here you can simply choose the default OS from a drop down menu. An interesting quirk that we came across was that at the login screen, the display didn’t cover the entire screen (we used a 15.4" widescreen display), but just a small portion of it. This happens only at the login screen, but once inside, there are no issues whatsoever. Apparently Vista is having some issues with widescreen displays, but it's nothing serious. Also, the system did not automatically take the native screen resolution of 1280x800 but was stuck at 1024x768. We had to manually correct it. Normally in XP, the screen resolution gets set automatically (for LCDs). Perhaps this is another pre-Beta 2 quirk. |
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