The user experience is a high priority for Windows Vista, and part of that "experience" are the sounds that come with the operating system. It's incredible the amount of work that goes in to capturing that perfect sound to represent different events in...

Buy a Vista-capable PC today and get an upgrade when Vista hits the shelves in the new year. The manufacturers currently taking part in this offer are: Dell Fujitsu Lenovo HP Medion NEC Sony Toshiba (website not ready yet) From the looks of it they are...

This ones for the IT admins out there. When applying Group Policy Objects (GPOs) in active directory using WMI Filters, you can figure out whether a computer is running Vista or Longhorn Server by using the following queries: For Vista SELECT Version...

The Sidebar in Vista is a dock for small, lightweight applications that provide useful information at the user's fingertips. There's a growing community creating all kinds of gadgets from Virtual Earth maps to eBay searches - all these are downloadable...

Be the envy of all your colleagues when you turn up to meetings with this fantastic Windows Vista Lanyard! It'll be the perfect way to keep your ID badge and/or ReadyBoost USB Pen handy wherever and whenever you need it! These lanyards are seriously sought...

Here's a video on Soapbox which shows off the graphics capabilities of DirectX 10 - pretty cool stuff! Video: Directx10 Microsoft Gaming Courtesy of Ben, my grad colleague in France!

I've been wanting to post this screencast for a while now - because it shows off one of the killer features in Vista - Windows Meeting Space. Imagine the scenario; you've sat down for a coffee in your favourite caffeine outlet and you're meeting with...

The explosion of the information age has resulted in an incredible opportunity around search for partners and Microsoft. There's so much information out there both for businesses and consumers that at present most of it remains undiscovered; remaining...

Software vendors are already busy developing their range of next generation applications based upon beta versions of Vista so that they are ready to launch them at the same time as Vista. So what new stuff will you see with Vista based applications? Well...

Windows Vista introduces a number of new technologies , among them one called Windows ReadyDrive that works in conjunction with new hybrid hard drive technology to improve the performance of your PC. Windows ReadyDrive makes use of non-volatile flash...

As a tablet PC user, you've got to love Vista. The handwriting recognition is fantastic - it recognises my (dreadful) handwriting out of the box - with no training. The Tablet Input Panel is superb, especially with contextual mode where it's always available...

Video: Views On Vista - Reliability Monitor Here's the latest screencast which is on Reliability Monitor in Windows Vista. Reliability Monitor provides an easy way for support technicians to quickly isolate problems with users computers by monitoring...

The latest screencast insallment is on Vista deployment; to give it the proper name - Business Desktop Deployment (BDD). So what's behind the acronym? Well, BDD provides one solution with which businesses can plan, build and deploy Windows Vista to their...

So hopefully you are all familiar with Windows Vista but what you might not have heard about is the next Windows Server platform which is looming in the background. This is code-named "Longhorn Server" and is just about to hit Beta 3 with a release to...

Talk about last minute, but the guys over on the Shell Team managed to get the problem with setting background images working properly and push a bug fix into the RTM code - looks like I need to download and install another build!!! Maybe I should just...

"Oracle is years behind Microsoft and other companies on security," said Cesar Cerrudo, CEO at information security services company Argeniss in Argentina. "I think Oracle is an amateur when it comes to security right now." Oracle patched 101 security...

I know my team have been having some issues when running Live Meeting on Vista so I just wanted to post about this hotfix for the console that will allow you to view live meetings on Vista. The issue was that in some more locked-down IT environments the...

How is the recovery process fulfilled? Does recovery use passwords or tokens and what happens if these are lost? Recovery is via a recovery key (48 digit key) which needs to have been saved/printed when the workstation was set up. If the computer is in...

Offline Files for Dummies One of the more subtle changes in Windows Vista is the way the operating system manages Offline Files. Offline files, for those who don't know is the ability to work with files that reside on a networked server even though the...

I saw a post on Zune Insider that talked about the battery life of the Zune player and it got me thinking about how the numbers stack up against the competition. So I pointed IE7 over to Apple's iPod website and Creative's Zen website and took a look...

Gadgets for the sidebar are coming out thick and fast - just check out the Windows Live Gallery where you can download gadgets for the SideBar in Vista or for your Windows Live Homepage. My latest find is the postage calculator for the Royal Mail in the...

The newest, publically available version of Vista has just hit the download servers. With only days until launch to manufacturing and volume licensing customers, RC2 will provide the most stable and true picture as to the state of its readiness for release...

Vista comes with a raft of new security features many of which can be configured via the wonders of group policy. There are exactly 32 new settings that control the way in which removable storage can be configured - 16 in user config and 16 in system...

There have been lots of questions on UAC (User Access Control) coming in to me over the past couple of months, so I thought I would put together a FAQ on UAC: If I was to run all users as administrators, what is the difference with these two configurations...

It seems that Scoble has come across Soapbox which is Microsoft's "answer to YouTube". I'm signed up and now uploading my screencasts to my account for the masses to enjoy! ;-) His post made me chuckle after he had previously talked about how he compared...