The Feb. 2006 Community Technology Preview (CTP) marks a major milestone in the Windows Vista development process: the first feature-complete public release, meaning that all the features are coded and exposed for testing and evaluation. The Windows team has announced it will use a series of more frequently released and widely available CTPs to augment traditional beta releases, and although this is the first CTP to include all the features, it should be noted that some features could still change substantially between now and the final release of Windows Vista later this year.

Why Evaluate This CTP?

Microsoft has labeled the fourth Windows Vista CTP, released in Feb. 2006, as an Enterprise CTP to signal large organizations that they should begin their evaluations. But this CTP also represents an important release for hardware and software developers, who need to ensure that their products will work with Windows Vista, as this CTP also includes an updated Windows SDK and Windows driver kit (WDK).

In addition to evaluating the CTP for its features, large organizations and system integrators will also want to begin evaluating the latest version of the Windows Automated Installation Kit (WAIK), a set of tools to create and manage the images used for installation. These tools could lower the cost of deploying the OS to large numbers of desktops.

Large organizations typically need more time than consumers to evaluate a new version of an OS because they have developed critical line-of-business applications and must verify that these applications are compatible with the new OS before they will consider deploying it. The Windows Vista features that businesses will want to evaluate first to determine their impact on applications and their IT infrastructure include the following:

Security improvements. Windows Vista adds BitLocker Drive Encryption, which allows users to protect the data on their computers, and User Account Control, which allows a user only enough privileges on their computer to perform a given task. (Today, most users run in a highly privileged role, as administrators of their local computers.)

Network improvements. Windows Vista has built-in support for Internet Protocol version 6 (IPv6); an improved Windows Firewall can monitor outbound network packets as well as the inbound packets to which the original Windows XP firewall was limited.

Management improvements. Windows Vista includes improved event logging, a new version of the Microsoft Management Console (MMC) first introduced in Windows Server 2003, and more features that can be managed via Group Policy.

User interface (UI) improvements. Searching for documents on a computer has been improved in Vista, and the Windows Sidebar provides easy access to Gadgets—mini-applications that provide information at a glance. Organizations can create customized Gadgets to expose information from their line-of-business applications. However, businesses will want to determine whether the changes to the UI will require additional training for users.

Another reason that Microsoft is focusing on enterprises first is to make sure that Windows Vista is not labeled as only a consumer-focused release of Windows. When Microsoft released Windows XP in 2001, it stressed consumer-friendly improvements, such as ease in working with digital cameras and photographs, but this left business customers with the impression that Windows XP had few improvements for them. Many previews of Windows Vista, such as Bill Gates's keynote address at the Consumer Electronics Show in Jan. 2006, have also focused on the consumer, so Microsoft wants to assure organizations that Windows Vista will be a key release for both businesses and consumers. The next CTP, scheduled for the second quarter, will likely be labeled as a "Consumer" CTP.

Although all the features are now present in the CTP, some are very rough and are likely to change as Microsoft receives feedback and bug reports from users testing this release. It should also be noted that many features are not stable and will fail, and few (if any) features have been tuned to improve their performance or minimize resource utilization.

Availability and Resources

The Feb. 2006 CTP is available to MSDN and TechNet Plus subscribers.

General information for IT professionals about Windows Vista, including information about the Feb. 2006 CTP and the WAIK, are at www.microsoft.com/technet/windowsvista/default.mspx.

Developer information, including the Feb. 2006 CTP, the SDK, and DDK, is available at msdn.microsoft.com/windowsvista/.

For a description of CTP programs and why Microsoft is changing from betas to CTPs, see "Shipping Software: The End Game Revisited" on page 13 of the Mar. 2006 Update.

An overview of Windows Vista is available in the Dec. 2005 Research Report, "A First Look at Windows Vista."

User Account Control is described in "User Account Control to Limit Vista Exploits" on page 3 of the Feb. 2006 Update.

IPv6 support in Windows Vista (which was code-named Longhorn) is discussed in "Windows Support for IPv6 Increases" on page 3 of the Apr. 2005 Update.