Windows Vista was hit by significantly fewer publicly disclosed security flaws in its first year than Windows XP and open source rivals in their first years, according to a report from Microsoft. The report, written by Jeff Jones, a security strategy director in Microsoft’s Trustworthy Computing group, is part of Microsoft’s effort to show that its work on redesigning the security architecture and adding new security features to Vista have paid off.
With dissatisfaction over the Vista operating system persistent, can Microsoft right the OS’s wrongs with its upcoming Vista service pack? Microsoft made the latest beta of Vista SP1 available to the public earlier this month, and after informally testing it for a couple of days, I find my PC is working more reliably–and some tasks especially file copying, take less time. But I was hoping for more out of SP1, such as bigger system performance gains and fixes for Vista annoyances including the oft-criticized User Account Control feature.
Windows 7 (AKA Blackcomb then Vienna) had initially been rumoured to hit the market in 2010, but expectations are rising that it will make a landing in the second half of 2009.Australia’s APC magazine even claims to have seen Redmond’s roadmap for the new OS which marks three so-called “milestone” builds for the product’s planned release.
With every previous version of Windows, Microsoft has released what it calls a “Plus” pack but really is an expansion pack for the operating system to add features. Vista is no different and will see its Plus! pack released in a few weeks. The Vista Plus! pack is aimed primarily at Vista Basic users and adds additional features to that operating system.



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