Tag Archives: vista

Window Vista Build 5472.5 is Released

Posted on by NeoSmart Technologies
14

Microsoft has just released the latest installment of the Windows Vista pre-RC1 builds, with Vista Build 5472.5 making its way to TAP and Tech Beta tester today, and for once, MSDN Subscribers too.

Build 5472.5 is a standard FRE Staged build, only available in English at the moment, though Arabic, Japanese, and German builds may follow. At this point all the builds we are seeing seem to undergoing severe stages of heavy optimization: although faster code normally comes at the expense of larger files as a rule of thumb, this build of Windows Vista packs a punch performance-wise, but is only a 100 MB larger than its predecessor, Build 5456.

The fact that this build has been distributed to a very large segment of the beta testing population (MSDN and Tech Net subscibers are normally excluded from interim builds like this one) leads us to believe this is the real deal: the build that will be RC1 with a bit more time and some more optimizations. It is probably meant to provide a testing background for the new ‘Aero Express’ theme (see below for more).

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CSS & Vista's New Fonts

Posted on by NeoSmart Technologies
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As we reported and reviewed in our article “A Comprehensive Look at Microsoft’s New Fonts”, Vista has some spectacular new fonts – but we have a few issues with them now that we’ve tried them and implemented them with mixed success here on The NeoSmart Files and on the Forums, and here’s the problem.

They just don’t fit. The new fonts are mostly too small to be plugged right in to an existing CSS file. If you tweak the CSS so that it looks right for, say, Calibri; ten minutes later someone that doesn’t have that font is going to come around and ask your server for that CSS file – but since they don’t have Calibri installed, their browser will use the next one on the list, and unfortunately, your sizes are going to be all wrong.

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Internet Explorer 7 Beta 3 Reviewed

Posted on by NeoSmart Technologies
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Internet Explorer 7

This week Microsoft released Beta 3 of Windows Internet Explorer 7, and NeoSmart Technologies has a review (with screenshots!) ready for our faithful readers and members.

Since Windows Vista was first announced, for many users Internet Explorer 7 was actually the big reward: a new version of what used to be the world’s favorite browser, and – for the most part – they weren’t disappointed. Despite the progress issues in Windows Vista, Internet Explorer 7 has been coming along fine, and this new version brings its (Lion’s) share of features and improvements. In short, this browser has come a long way and promises to put up a real fight against the competition that only so recently overtook IE7, namely the latest versions of Firefox and Opera. Beta 3 makes subtle changes to the GUI and display that give it a nicer, more “exotic” appeal; with IE7’s focus on softer highlights and shadows, it’s begging for Web 2.0 – but can it handle it?

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10 Steps to Vista Upgrade Success

Posted on by NeoSmart Technologies
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Since Beta 2, Windows Vista has had a fairly versatile and reliable upgrade path from Windows XP to Vista, and in Build 5456, it’s been improved on even more – now you rarely hear of people that couldn’t upgrade, but nevertheless, people suffer as a result of upgrades whether they know it or not.

The most common “symptoms” include patchy Aero performance (if at all), frequent BSODs, drivers refusing to install, and general system unresponsiveness. The problem is that even the experts tend to forget that there is a difference between a clean install and an upgrade, even if everything else worked. When an upgrade is performed, evil things may brew just beneath the surface, waiting for the user to forget that an upgrade is the root of all those problems.

Fortunately there are quite a few steps you can take to protect yourself from buggy upgrades and their corresponding headaches, and they’re not too hard either.

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What WinFS is all About

Posted on by NeoSmart Technologies
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WinFS has been officially pulled out of Microsoft’s road map for products and services – permanently. People all around the web are shocked and complaining. But the thing is: who didn’t expect this?

OK, sure, maybe Mr. & Mrs. John Q. Public didn’t expect this, and maybe Joe Blogg didn’t either, but then again, does it really matter to them? But for everyone else, WinFS was gone. Although no one came out and said it directly, no one spoke of WinFS except as a distant memory, it was quite obvious that people didn’t buy Microsoft’s story of it shipping separately. If people had believed it, the shock and outrage today would be ten times as big as it was when the LH project was rebooted and WinFS torn out with the veins strings still hanging.

But the question many people are asking these long years later is: What is WinFS anyway? And what’s the big deal if everyone already knew it wasn’t coming?

WinFS was the last piece of the jigsaw puzzle. Anyone that is familiar with the term “Cairo” should know immediately what we’re talking about. For 15 years now, Cairo was Microsoft’s vision, almost every single decision made for the desktop operating systems came from a vision of Cairo becoming a reality, and over the years, Cairo began to take shape. Everything was in place, and only WinFS was left.

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Beta 2: Stable, But Scary

Posted on by NeoSmart Technologies
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How do you define an OS as stable?

XP was stable in that you could do an honest day’s work without having to save it every couple of seconds in fear of a BSOD. Windows 2000 was stable: it gave the users what they expected, and once they got it working (driver issues mostly), it remained stable.

One can’t honestly call Vista stable in that way however. It’s largely a hit-or-miss process, and Vista either works or doesn’t. Once it works, it might just stop working, you never know. But Vista is stable – very stable.

In Windows XP (x86) if XP went up to over 26-27 thousand memory handles open at once, it would just fail. The entire operating system bogs down, and even after you get the handles down to a more manageable size, it remained slow and unresponsive unless a reboot was performed. Windows XP x64 used 64-bit technology to raise the bar to an amazing 35-38 thousand handles limit – from experience.

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Windows: Microsoft Beating on a Dead Horse

Posted on by NeoSmart Technologies
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Windows Vista is going to be really cool. It has all these nifty utilities and awesome animations, with a lot of hard work at the core too.

But Vista is the end of line. I’m not saying Microsoft won’t make another Windows, they probably will, but it’ll be a mistake. Even Vista was a mistake. Technology just doesn’t work that way, and it can be a treacherous beast to tame and fatal to maim.

Microsoft has two things going against it; two things that make Windows dead; and two things that could mean the end of line for everything Microsoft: Microsoft’s insistence on backwards compatibility, and ultimately, their failure to recognize change and move on ahead.

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Recovering XP & Windows.Old After a Vista Installation

Posted on by NeoSmart Technologies
15

So you just installed a shiny, new, & legal, copy of Windows Vista. Somewhere along the way, you realized that your XP Partition wasn’t there anymore, and that you’ve lost every single program you’d installed over the past 6 years – gone! All just because you didn’t realize that you were installing Windows Vista to the XP partition.

Don’t worry, NeoSmart is here with the answer yet again. Don’t despair just yet! There’s much in terms of hope, and with this guide, you can get your XP back, with all it’s programs, registry, settings, and more – as if Vista was never there, and no one (*cough* the wife *cough*) needs to know you overwrote your XP – ever!

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New NeoSmart Project – Unavailable for a While

Posted on by NeoSmart Technologies
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What do you get when you add Linux to Vista, throw in some .NET, and try to save the world?

NST’s newest project of course! Our launch of VistaBootPRO didn’t go exactly as anticipated (legal issues pertaining to the ownership of the program), but that doesn’t mean we’re gone!
Lo and Behold, NST is back with more!

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Windows Vista Beta 2 Has Gone Public!

Posted on by NeoSmart Technologies
72

Windows Vista Beta 2 is now available for download for anyone that wants it.

It’s the same build we got two weeks ago, not a new one, but you can grab it with your very own unique and un-activated key, and enjoy legal-Vista goodiness!

Download Beta 2!