Windows Vista Release Candidate 1 arrives at the station

Stan Beer
Saturday, 02 September 2006 07:15

Your IT - Home IT

It's been five years in the making, but Windows Vista is just about cooked with Microsoft announcing Release Candidate 1 (RC1) of its long awaited new operating system to the market.

The word from Windows Platforms and Services copresident, Jim Allchin is that RC1 is virtually there but, although it is a significant step beyond Vista Beta 2 with support for many more device drivers, there is still some work to do.

"You’ll notice a lot of improvements since Beta 2," says Allchin on the Windows Vista Team Blog.

"We’ve made some UI adjustments, added more device drivers, and enhanced performance.  We’re not done yet, however — quality will continue to improve.  We’ll keep plugging away on application compatibility, as well as fit and finish, until RTM.  If you are an ISV, RC1 is the build you should use for certifying your application.

"The operating system is in great shape with RC1, but there’s still a lot of testing to do."

Initially, Vista RC1 has been made available to the TechBeta and Technology Adoption Program (TAP) community of about 20,000 users, but it is expected to be released more widely to the developer community in the coming week.

One of the improvements reportedly to be found in Vista RC1 is modification of the User Account Control feature, which has been incorporated into the system as a security measure. Testers had complained of far too much intrusion by a continual nest of pop up boxes asking them to validate processes.

With the arrival of Vista RC1, Microsoft now appears to be firmly on track to get its next generation operating system to market on time. There will most likely be just one more release candidate  between now and November, after which the final product should be released to business users by November. Consumers should be able to get Vista by January 2007.

As an aside, of interest to some users will be that Microsoft, one of the strongest backers of the HD DVD high definition video format, has included support for the opposition high definition technology Blu-ray. However, Microsoft is also working with the Firefox team to make sure that its biggest browser competitor is compatible with Vista, indicating that the software company does not want to give any potential user an excuse to go elswehere.