Is Vista Ultimate, The Ultimate?
{Tech}

Windows Vista has been released for a month now to business, and is going to be released to the general public in a month (January 30). For those who haven't been following Vista's development, it is worth noting that even though Vista comes 5 years after XP, it is a rushed product. Originally set to be a relatively small update to XP, to be released in 2003, it was re-envisioned as a major release, with revolutionary technologies such as WinFS (a new file system), Palladium (security system), Avalon (graphics system) and Indigo (communications system). We don't see such a big breakthrough as it happened from Windows to XP in this XP to Vista.
It doesn't really matter if Vista is a success or not, Microsoft cannot wait another five years to release another Windows. And that is why Microsoft is planning a "Vista R2", codename 'Fiji'. From what little information is available we know that this will be a minor release sometime in 2008. Want to see the features of this damn thing?

Windows Fiji

• The UI will be updated with things that were originally promised for Vista, along with a more powerful sidebar, which will be more than just a dock for widgets (a.k.a. gadgets)
  
• .Net Framework will be updated to 3.5 (or maybe even 4)
  
• WinFS will be applied over NTFS to give us Virtual Folders (or maybe just Saved Searches)
• All bundled application will be updated to newer versions
  
• Tighter integration with Windows Live. Probably through 'Codename Nemo', a media center application that is integrated with Messenger, Spaces, and probably lots of other Windows Live Services.
  
• We might see Monaco, a music authoring tool, similar to Apple's Garageband.
  
• Default playback of HD-DVD (maybe even Blu-ray), Vista currently identifies these disks but cannot play them without an external decoder.
  
• A more advanced Speech Recognition
  
• NGSCB will be implemented to make the system more secure.
  
• New themes, icons, wallpapers, games, and minor tweaks to almost everything.
  

Although Fiji doesn't sound too exciting yet, new features are bound to be added. Still, it might just be a way to keep us quiet while they work on Vienna.
Windows Vienna (formerly Blackcomb) will be a huge departure from current incarnations of Windows, Similar to the transition from OS8-9 to OSX. It will break compatibility with all applications, but the newer, more flexible, richer and secure platform will be incentive enough for applications to be re-written for Vienna.

Windows Vienna

• The current interface will be completely stripped, no more explorer shells, and taskbars. No start menu. Probably no toolbars, or menus (which already started with Vista)..
  
• Speech Recognition will become a major input device (though it will not replace the keyboard and mouse) and will be supported by most third party applications.
  
• Many projects from Microsoft's R&D will come into play, especially from their VIBE research center. A pie-menu is rumored to be used.
  
• A new version of NTFS wrapped in a more powerful WinFS. No more drives, or files/folders location to worry about. File Management will be done through applications, which will automatically index and sort the files they support.
  
• Even bundled applications will evolve a lot (jus compare WMP6 with WMP11).
  
• Search will part a huge part in Vienna (like it does in the control panel of Vienna)
  
• Applications with non-managed code will run in a sandbox mode (like IE7 does in Vista), so that security exploits in a single application doesn't affect the entire OS.
  

Facts are hard to come by about Windows Vienna but it has 15 years of R&D to borrow from, and one thing is for certain, Vienna won't be just an operating system, but a new generation in computing. So don't get amazed on Vista!!