Windows Vista BETA 2 Preview Screenshots!


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"Just weeks after releasing Windows Vista Beta 1, Microsoft has shifted our paradigms again, unveiling a preview of beta 2 at the TechEd 2005 developer conference this morning. Dan Warne reports from the Gold Coast. The gut-thumping hype was for the arrival of Microsoft big-wig Iain McDonald, Managing Director of the Windows Server group and also the dude that's in charge of bringing Windows Vista out of the dark recesses of Bill's beta cupboard and onto your home PC.

He was announced as "our very own Aussie success story"; McDonald is originally from Sydney and now works at Microsoft HQ and he swaggered onto the stage looking every bit the Aussie larrikin, complete with goatee, beer belly and fair dinkum Aussie accent.

Read the rest and check out the cool screenshots here

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Nice to see the Alt-Tab cascading effect is back.

https://www.neowin.net/forum/index.php?showtopic=354090

I posted on it a while back.

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Beta 2 preview. Those guys are incredible. Little morsels of LH for the last two years. It does sound cool. It will be interesting to see if they will have a newer boot screen, and maybe the startup soundwave. ?

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Actually, its been like that since Windows 1.01, except for subtle productivity changes that appeared in Windows 2000, when a player stacked all cards in appropriate order, or he/she had to do was right click to see stack explode.

Only for MSDN Subscribers and Technical Beta Testers, not until probably RCO will it be available to the public.

From the looks of Beta 2 Preview (which is rumored to be 5219, which I'm starting to believe is the PDC 2005 Build), yes, those cosmetic niceties 3D Alt-Tab, TaskSwitcher will be in there to play with.

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Actually, the PDC build (5219) will go out prior to beta 2. B2 will also kick off an even larger Technical Beta Wave, as B2 will include at least some of the functionality of the Tablet and Media Center Edition variations (however, I doubt that a specific Media Center Edition will ship; instead, there will be Premium Edition, which will be a true superset of Professional Edition, and includes the ability to join domains, which the current MCE lacks, and support all the features/functionality of both TPC and MCE; does anyone know if Tablet PC Edition can join domains?).

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those screenshots are Windows Vista Beta 2? or Windows Vista beta 1 Refresh? i'm confused....

Paul thurrott say: Windows Vista beta 2 will be ready early december, the build 5219 is a pre-beta 2 build with some new features.

What is exactly the build displayed in the Tech-ed??

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Are we likely to get wavy windows like we saw in 4015 lab 6 sometime ago?

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Yea, Id like to see those crazy wavy windows too, and the spinning windows (I remember they had the matrix dvd spinning around the screen like it was going down a drain)

Also, the sidebar is definately making a comeback, and 5219 is not beta 2, but it is most likely the Beta Refresh that will be handed out at PDC.

Personally I'd like to see Microsoft bring Chess back to windows -- I hate Solitaire :p

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Actually, the PDC build (5219) will go out prior to beta 2.  B2 will also kick off an even larger Technical Beta Wave, as B2 will include at least some of the functionality of the Tablet and Media Center Edition variations (however, I doubt that a specific Media Center Edition will ship; instead, there will be Premium Edition, which will be a true superset of Professional Edition, and includes the ability to join domains, which the current MCE lacks, and support all the features/functionality of both TPC and MCE; does anyone know if Tablet PC Edition can join domains?).

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I believe tablet pc can. the ability to join domains (easily) was removed from MCE2k5 in order to bring the price of that version down, and MCE has sold much better at the new, lower price, so I'd say it was a good idea. They'll probably follow it up with both an MCE/Vista a Premium/Vista that is a superset of everything.

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Actually, its been like that since Windows 1.01, except for subtle productivity changes that appeared in Windows 2000, when a player stacked all cards in appropriate order, or he/she had to do was right click to see stack explode.

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Solitaire first shipped with Windows 3.0. Windows 1 and 2 had Reversi.

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Actually, its been like that since Windows 1.01, except for subtle productivity changes that appeared in Windows 2000, when a player stacked all cards in appropriate order, or he/she had to do was right click to see stack explode.

Only for MSDN Subscribers and Technical Beta Testers, not until probably RCO will it be available to the public.

From the looks of Beta 2 Preview (which is rumored to be 5219, which I'm starting to believe is the PDC 2005 Build), yes, those cosmetic niceties 3D Alt-Tab, TaskSwitcher will be in there to play with.

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Are you kidding me?....you now believe it will be 5219....oh my goodness.

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Among the breakthrough new features shown to the 2,000 developers paying $2,000 each to attend TechEd: Solitaire with new background images, a scrolling Alt+Tab bar and Microsoft's version of Mac OS X's Expose function, which allows all the open Windows to be viewed at once. (Microsoft has done a 3D thing that shows the windows stacked side by side, rather than spreading them out in miniature across the desktop as Apple has done.)

:laugh:

Anyway, if that's indeed their version of Expose, Microsoft hasn't understood much about what made it so great... With those Windows stacks, how on earth are you going to see anything more than the title bars? :no: Expose manage to show the window contents, while still giving the user an easy way to pick a window. Part of the point is to spread them out.

Also, scrolling Alt-Tab bar sounds like another design mistake, as that implies you won't see all programs you have running when you press Alt-Tab.

If this isn't just unpolished beta features, MS sure needs to get a grip on basic UI design.

Edited by Jugalator
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Are you kidding me?....you now believe it will be 5219....oh my goodness.

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I needed tangible proof which TechEd Australia provided. ;)

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WOOT! Let's all go by a $200+ OS because there are new backgrounds and effects to Solitare :rolleyes:

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I love the new 3D Alt-Tab, Taskswitcher, Solitaire, Aero UI (even though its not finalized), Integrated fast search in Explorer, searchable Start Menu, hirarchial All Programs menu (goodbye to cascading menu), much improved speech recognition, better junk mail filtering of e-mail in OE, awesome filtering search in OE for newsgroup post, new back up supports Optical media (still shaky), bread crumb address bar in Explorer, Live icon previews, Virtual folders + the ability to save searches as virtual folders, Property bar for entering additional information about a file without having to

, resume time from hibernation is faster, log in time in faster (desktop plus icons appear much quicker than XP), full resolution icons (no more jaggy's by B2), the new setup is nice too (although its not finalized, but goodbye to txt base setup).

and the majority of this is jut beta 1/beta 2 preview, so its worth spending $200 for the upgrade, a majority of this functionality might be included in the Home Edition of Vista which cost $99 upgrade and might be lower if purchased through OEM with qualifying hardware such as a mouse.

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I love the new 3D Alt-Tab, Taskswitcher, Solitaire, Aero UI (even though its not finalized), Integrated fast search in Explorer, searchable Start Menu, hirarchial All Programs menu (goodbye to cascading menu), much improved speech recognition, better junk mail filtering of e-mail in OE, awesome filtering search in OE for newsgroup post, new back up supports Optical media (still shaky), bread crumb address bar in Explorer, Live icon previews, Virtual folders + the ability to save searches as virtual folders, Property bar for entering additional information about a file without having to
, resume time from hibernation is faster, log in time in faster (desktop plus icons appear much quicker than XP), full resolution icons (no more jaggy's by B2), the new setup is nice too (although its not finalized, but goodbye to txt base setup).

and the majority of this is jut beta 1/beta 2 preview, so its worth spending $200 for the upgrade, a majority of this functionality might be included in the Home Edition of Vista which cost $99 upgrade and might be lower if purchased through OEM with qualifying hardware such as a mouse.

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I personally just can't find a single reason for me to upgrade though. WinFS is apparently going to be back-ported to XP, along with WinFX, so I just don't have a reason to upgrade... nothing is pushing me to want to upgrade.

The most exciting thing to me was WinFS, but since it might come out for Windows XP as well, I don't see a point in going to Vista. At any rate, because I'm a beta tester, and I have a TechNet Plus & MSDN Subscription, I will upgrade ... just because I will have access to it without paying extra for it. However, my advice to a normal end-user will be to keep what they have until they buy a new computer and are forced to get it.

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I personally just can't find a single reason for me to upgrade though. WinFS is apparently going to be back-ported to XP, along with WinFX, so I just don't have a reason to upgrade... nothing is pushing me to want to upgrade.

The most exciting thing to me was WinFS, but since it might come out for Windows XP as well, I don't see a point in going to Vista. At any rate, because I'm a beta tester, and I have a TechNet Plus & MSDN Subscription, I will upgrade ... just because I will have access to it without paying extra for it. However, my advice to a normal end-user will be to keep what they have until they buy a new computer and are forced to get it.

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The WinFS Team has not finalized distribution, saying it will be downleveled to XP is just speculation. We have 1 CTP to go through plus to milestone betas, its not expected to be finalized until Q3 2007. Mainstream support for XP will be ending in 2006, which means, the WinFS Team will obviously not support WinFS on XP by then, support for XP now is just to provide developer comfort and familiarity, more as a testbed than a truly targetted platform. Its also expected that by beta 2 next year it will support Vista. The reason why it will not be supported on XP also in 2007 is because it will be considered a feature/tool, Microsoft will not back port such technologies in a Service Pack for XP since Service Packs are only for bug fixes.

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personally i found vista beta 1 amazing! theres just so much in that os that I love, then theres things i hate but thats in every operating system... Beta 2 should improve on a lot of the issues, on my system it runs nice but my video card just isn't supported for lddm for aero glass theme :( because i got the agp model of the x800 xl, Im really hoping they fix that issue.

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Does anyone know the details of the slide "Features List", or can anyone make out what it says. Good to see Vista is comin along, and i guess by making solitaire cooler, at least they are paying attention to detail. Normally they would just do major things to the UI etc, but this is promising...

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nice alt tab. and billthy, solitaires just updated with custom backgrounds. sorry to say :p

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Actually.. It was discussed on a Channel 9 video... The reason for the new solitaire was because when you have a large res.. The cards just keep getting smaller as well as the gaps in between them and just looked crappy.. That was fixed to be flexable when changing the screen res..

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