Windows Vista
Performance: Faster response and startup
When it’s time to work or play, Windows Vista delivers improved performance on today’s computers, especially where it’s most noticeable—starting up, waking up, and responding to your actions.
Fast startup
Get productive faster with Windows Vista’s quick startup. Login scripts and startup applications and services process in the background while you get on with your work. And you’ll restart less often because you can use the sleep state instead of shutting down to save power.
Safe sleep and quick resume
The new sleep state in Windows Vista combines the speed of Standby mode and the data protection and low power consumption of Hibernate. Changing or removing a battery during sleep state is no problem, for example, because applications and data stored in memory have been safely written to the hard disk. And startup from sleep state requires just seconds.
Windows Vista is the most reliable version of Windows ever, right out of the box. It’s also more resilient and better at recovering from problems, resulting in fewer disruptions. The Windows Vista engineering motto: No hangs, no crashes, no reboots.
All this means that you’ll be able to use your time at the computer doing what you want to do.
Fewer application restarts, hangs, crashes, and reboots
Applications written for Windows Vista will keep running—with less chance of hanging or becoming unresponsive than with earlier versions of Windows. Windows Vista is measurably more resilient to application problems and can recover better from problems that do occur.
Windows Vista’s improved real-time error reporting (optional for end users) gives developers the information they need to fix unresponsive applications terminated by users.
Windows Vista also contains new capabilities that will improve reliability. For example, Windows Vista supports synchronous cancellation of I/O requests. This feature enables applications to recover when a required resource is in use by another application, thus eliminating a common cause of unresponsive applications.
Detects impending failures
Windows Vista built-in diagnostics can proactively detect problems with system components such as hard disks, memory, and networks. Windows Vista notifies you and walks you through the problem resolution. Consider the following scenarios:
| • | Although you don’t know it, your hard disk is about to fail. Windows Disk Diagnostics detects the impending failure and guides you through data backup. You’ve escaped a disaster from which it might have taken weeks to recover. |
| • | Failing random access memory (RAM) causes your computer to crash. Windows Memory Diagnostics, working with Microsoft Online Crash Analysis (OCA) to detect crashes caused by failing memory, prompts you to schedule a memory test the next time you restart your computer. Then it walks you through the test procedure. |
| • | You are a mobile computer user in an enterprise setting, and you’ve been on the road and have forgotten to back up your data for a few weeks. When you return home and connect to your enterprise network, an event indicating an impending disk failure is forwarded from your computer to your IT support center. Your administrator notifies you of the impending problem and schedules a repair at a convenient time. |
In each case, Windows Vista detects the problem proactively and helps you avoid data loss and system downtime.
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of pageWinFX: Improving on the past and looking toward the future
WinFX is a managed-code programming model that represents an evolution for both Win32 and the .NET Framework. WinFX enables every developer to quickly create applications that take advantage of improved graphics and presentation systems, improved connectivity, and substantial advances in the core security and reliability of Windows Vista.
Windows Vista assures both application compatibility—existing applications should always run—and developer compatibility—all features are accessible through both WinFX and Win32. Existing source code and training skills apply to Windows Vista whether developing in C++/MFC or VB .NET/Windows Forms.
WinFX offers both practical solutions to today’s software challenges and new opportunities to create innovative software and services. It enables developers and designers to quickly create new applications and experiences that are more reliable and secure, visually stunning, smarter about information management, better connected, and more collaborative.
To help developers build applications more quickly, WinFX delivers:
| • | A consistent programming model across all Windows Vista features |
| • | A single, obvious right way to do common tasks |
| • | High-level class libraries that encapsulate common tasks |
| • | A familiar programming paradigm that builds on existing skills |
| • | A framework that is tool-friendly |