By Brian Culp
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Table of Contents

Chapter 1: What's New in Windows Vista?

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So here it is. Nearly six years since its release of Windows XP, Microsoft has released its latest operating system, and it's coming soon to a computer near you. And because you've picked up this book, chances are that said computer is the one you're using right now.

"But so what," you say. "What's so great about Windows Vista? Why should I upgrade my own computer to Windows Vista? Better yet, why should every single person in my corporate network upgrade? What's going to make this a cost-effective upgrade, and how am I going to justify the expense?"

What follows in this chapter are answers to some of these questions, by way of a brief discussion of some of Vista's new features. But note that the answers are certainly subjective in nature. Are Parental Controls vital to systems I administer? Is this Presentation feature going to save me money? Is Windows Flip 3D going to save time and confusion? Of course, the answers differ according to the needs of the individual and/or the enterprise.

Also realize that this chapter is by no means an exhaustive compendium of everything new in Windows Vista, but rather a guided tour of the significant changes as interpreted by one person. Microsoft has filled up hundreds of pages' worth of white papers covering these new enhancements; my job is to save you time and trouble by highlighting the most significant changes, and moreover, the most significant features of these changes.

We'll start with what's most obvious: the user interface, including features such as the new desktop and Sidebar. Later in the chapter, we'll examine a few new features with greater "administrative muscle," such as deployment and customization options. In fact, some of the features first introduced here will even merit further discussion during later chapters.

I know what you're thinking: "Meet the new Windows desktop, same as the old desktop." And generally speaking, you're correct. If you have used a previous version of Windows (or any other operating system, for that matter), not a whole lot has changed—at least at first glance. Yes, the desktop background looks better, and yes, the Start button is now a Start "orb." But it's still located in the same place, and you can use it for basically the same purpose: to launch an application.

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The Vista User Interface

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I know what you're thinking: "Meet the new Windows desktop, same as the old desktop." And generally speaking, you're correct. If you have used a previous version of Windows (or any other operating system, for that matter), not a whole lot has changed—at least at first glance. Yes, the desktop background looks better, and yes, the Start button is now a Start "orb." But it's still located in the same place, and you can use it for basically the same purpose: to launch an application.

Because not much has changed with the Windows desktop, we won't spend a lot of time talking about it here. You know where the Start button is; you know how to launch a program with a desktop icon. Instead, I'll cover a few new bells and whistles, highlight some of the "eye candy," and focus on how to configure some of these options.

Vista's most significant overhaul of the user interface can be summed up in a single word: Aero. That is Microsoft's brand name for the new look and feel, although its functionality goes beyond just an improved desktop appearance. So, what exactly is Aero? It encompasses many characteristics, including:

Glass

The program windows are now translucent, allowing users to see through programs to get an idea of what's on the window behind, as seen in . If you maximize the program, the glass goes away and you get the Vista default application color of gray/black.

Figure 1-1: Aero's glass appearance lets you see through applications

Glowing buttons

This isn't unique to Aero, but it is part and parcel of the new user experience. Buttons such as Minimize, Maximize, and Close now glow when your mouse hovers over them. You'll also see this behavior when using certain applications such as those in the Office 2007 suite. The glowing buttons make it just a little easier than before to be certain that your mouse click will carry out the action you intend. In other words, although it's a subtle difference, it's there to make the Windows experience more intuitive than ever. You see it even when you're not using Aero, which I'll explain in just a bit.

Windows Flip

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The Sidebar and Gadgets

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The Sidebar is new to Windows Vista. The Sidebar by itself really has no functionality; rather, it serves as a docking station for one or more gadgets.

Gadgets are little applications that can perform a wide variety of functions. They can display information gathered from your computer, such as memory/CPU usage and song playlists; information gathered from the Internet, such as stock, weather, and RSS feed data; user-supplied information, such as the very handy Notes application; or none of these things, as is the case with puzzles and games.

By default, Vista ships with 13 gadgets: in alphabetical order, they include the Calculator, Clock, CPU Meter, Currency Conversion, Feed Viewer, Feed Watcher, Notes, Number Puzzle, Picture Puzzle, Recycle Bin, Slide Show, Stocks, and Timer. You can download additional gadgets at the Microsoft Live Gallery web site, which you can find easily by following a hyperlink in Vista's Gadget Gallery, detailed shortly.

Companies and individuals can also develop and submit their own gadgets. Does IT need a way to quickly update staff about network status? Gadgets might just be the perfect solution. Do you want to keep abreast of your fantasy baseball team during day games? Go ahead and write the gadget yourself. All that work time devoted to your fantasy team will likely earn you a promotion.

Of course, you don't have to use the Sidebar if you prefer not to. Fortunately, configuring Sidebar behavior won't present much of a challenge.

Gadgets are also leveraged when you are using something called the Windows SideShow. I explain the SideShow in the "" section later in this chapter.

This is pretty easy stuff. For the most part, just remember to right-click. If you right-click the Sidebar and choose Properties, for example, you'll see the Properties dialog box shown in . This dialog box allows you to stop the Sidebar (and thus, the gadgets) from loading when Windows starts by clearing a single checkbox.

Figure 1-6: Modify Sidebar behavior

Note the options here that allow you to move the Sidebar display to the left or right of the monitor, and further to choose the monitor on which the Sidebar should appear.

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Security Features

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So far, we've taken a quick tour of Aero—the new user interface—and Windows gadgets. These are two of the new features that will be most apparent to you when you glance at the Vista desktop for the first time. But what about other new features that aren't as readily apparent? Have they made as significant an impact? Absolutely, and we'll start here with a discussion of the new security features.

It is (or was, at the time of this writing) hard to find an article covering Vista that doesn't include some mention about Vista's many new security features. As most people who have even a trace of geek in their blood are well aware, Microsoft has been roundly criticized over the years for creating operating systems in which security was an afterthought. That's the prevailing wisdom, anyway: Microsoft cares more about usability and compatibility than security, and there are executives aplenty at Symantec and McAfee who have the vacation homes and trophy girlfriends to prove it.

But now, with Vista, Microsoft has made OS security its top priority. In fact, the Web is chock-full of articles that plagiarize Microsoft's own marketing statement about security on Windows Vista:

It's "engineered to be the most secure version of Windows yet."

So what does that mean, exactly? It means that Vista includes a number of features that complement one another to help users and administrators avoid security problems that have plagued previous Windows operating systems. This section looks at three of these that are now included with Vista:

• Windows Defender
• Windows Firewall
• Windows Vista Parental Controls

We will discuss each in its own subsection. There are others, such as User Account Control and BitLocker Drive Encryption, which merit a separate section's worth of discussion.

(The same prevailing wisdom that criticized Microsoft for not being secure enough, by the way, is now trying to have it both ways: the PW now is that security features, such as User Account Control, for example, make the operating system "too secure" for the average user, who will find himself nothing short of aggrieved at having to confirm steps that can reconfigure his system. For more thoughts/criticisms on the subject, please refer to .)

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User Account Control

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Here's the challenge for Windows administrators: your users have the ability to do too much with their computers. But that's a rather nebulous description, isn't it? What's too much? Too much, at least to an operating system, can encompass many things, including rendering a system all but inoperable (inadvertently, of course) by either deleting some crucial file or executing some program or script that tells the computer to do something you don't want it to do.

Why does this happen? It happens because in the past, most accounts ended up with administrative rights. In Windows XP, all accounts have rights as local administrators. The XP Setup Wizard is kind enough to place all users in the local Administrators group.

This means that all XP users, by default, have the ability to:

• Read, write, and execute permissions over every single file, including Windows system files
• Exercise all Windows rights (including, for example, the right to take ownership of a file and then change permissions at will)

Other accounts in Windows XP included standard user accounts, which had much more limited privileges over the computer—too limited for a lot of companies, in fact. For example, a standard user account in Windows XP could not install applications, creating many a headache for the end user trying to get that "mission-critical" ActiveX control installed in her browser.

But that's no longer the case. Now, Vista introduces User Account Control, making it easier for companies to limit the rights of the average user, while still protecting the computer from accidental installations of malware (read: mission-critical ActiveX control).

In Vista, there are now two basic kinds of user accounts:

Administrator accounts

These accounts can perform any and all administrative tasks on the machine, including application installation and system setting changes.

Standard user accounts

These are the equivalent of the standard user accounts in previous versions of Windows. Standard accounts can install applications, but not those that install into the %systemroot% folder. Also, they cannot change system settings or perform other administrative tasks.

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BitLocker Drive Encryption

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BitLocker is another new security feature that, well, locks up all the data, or bits, on the hard drive. This feature is especially handy if your computer's hard drive is ever lost or stolen, and the purpose of this section is to give you a brief overview of this feature and some of the key components needed. A more detailed discussion, including step-by-step instructions, appears in .

BitLocker Drive Encryption works by encrypting the entire Windows operating system volume. The keys needed to unlock the encrypted volume are stored on a Trusted Platform Module (TPM) chip, which is built into the motherboard.

Why is this significant? The encryption keys needed to unlock data on your entire Windows volume are removed from the hard drive and stored on the TPM chip. This prevents someone from stealing your hard drive, taking it to another machine, sticking it into an enclosure, and accessing all the data. The encryption keys needed to unlock this data are still back on the TPM chip, which sits on the motherboard of the laptop, which is back at your office, sans hard drive.

During Vista's boot process, the TPM releases the encryption key needed to decrypt data on the operating system volume, but only after operating system integrity has been established. (None of which is visible to the end user under most circumstances. The release of the encryption key happens without user input unless otherwise directed by Group Policy.) This ensures that no offline tampering has taken place.

For a properly configured system, BitLocker is either enabled or disabled using the Control Panel application shown in . If you're using the Classic interface, there's a separate BitLocker Drive Encryption icon. If you're using the Standard interface, look under the Security grouping.

Figure 1-18: The Control Panel application displays whether BitLocker is on or off

And note that not every system can enable this feature. Before you implement BitLocker, make sure your system has the following components that meet BitLocker's minimum hardware requirements:

• A TPM microchip, version 1.2, turned on.

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Windows Service Hardening

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Windows services perform functions in the background. Usually, these services help automate a lot of tasks that make our computer life easier, and are an essential part of the operating system experience. If you've used Unix before, you might know these services as daemons. The Scheduling Service, for example, allows us to schedule maintenance operations such as an automatic backup or defragmentation of a drive.

But as with most things that make our lives easier, there's a potential downside. Sometimes malware is written to "piggyback" on these services, thus facilitating behaviors such as automatic software installation, duplication, changing of registry information, replacement of system files, and so forth. Windows Service Hardening works to prevent this behavior by reducing what Microsoft refers to as Vista's "attack surface."

Windows Service Hardening works by assigning a Security Identifier (SID) to each Windows service, which in turn allows Vista to better control access to the service. In other words, no access to the service is allowed other than what's specified by the SID. Also, services can now be further protected by utilizing access control lists (ACLs), which are private to the service, and which prevent both users and other services from accessing the resource. Windows Service Hardening also removes any unnecessary service privileges.

Further, Windows Vista services also now run in a less privileged account, such as LocalService or NetworkService, rather than the LocalSystem account, which has much greater reign over the computer. Previous Windows operating systems such as XP and Windows 2000 used the LocalSystem account to launch most applications.

Windows Service Hardening also grants a service write access only to those resources that have to be modified by the service. Any other modification, then, such as a registry modification requested by malware, will not be permitted.

An additional component of Windows Service Hardening is that services have a preconfigured firewall policy. This policy ensures that Windows services have only the minimum privileges needed to function properly.

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New Ways to Search

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One of the major overhauls in the Vista user interface is the (vastly) improved ability to search for (and locate) information on your hard drive. Good thing. With hard drives commonly ranging from 250 GB to 1 TB for personal storage, chances are pretty fair that you're now managing as much sheer data as many large companies—and even entire governments—did a mere quarter-century ago.

In this section, we'll look at some of the new search capabilities built into the Vista operating system. For me, these new search capabilities are like broadband Internet access—once you see them in action for the first time, everything that preceded them seems antiquated. I think you'll agree.

For starters, there's the Start menu. This is certainly nothing new to Windows users—it's still there waiting to help you in the desktop's lower-lefthand corner by default, but it has been updated with some new features.

Section 1.7.1.1: Using Instant Search on the Start menu

In general, the Start menu is designed so that your searches for files and folders on your computer are less "mouse-driven" than they were before. If you hold your mouse pointer over the All Programs folder, for example, the Programs submenu opens in the same Navigation Pane rather than in a cascading menu/submenu scheme. In other words, you'll spend less time (and aggravation) chasing submenus all over your monitor's screen.

But the biggest change is how Vista directs you to the new Instant Search. Click the Start menu, and the cursor blinks in the Search entry box, ready to help retrieve a program, a file, or just about anything stored on your computer. In other words, Instant Search is Vista's mechanism to accomplish the goal of reducing mouse-driven navigation.

Section 1.7.1.1.1: Just type and locate

To get started using the new Start menu's Instant Search, just start typing. The best way to get a feel for how this works is to see it in action. Let's say, for example, that you're looking for a Word document about a new medicine that was emailed to you a few months back. Some questions can arise, however, that make retrieving that file problematic. These questions include:

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Search with Windows Explorer

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Another way to locate information on a Vista computer is through Windows Explorer, a feature that has been around on Windows computers for a while and yet another that has been almost completely redesigned.

Windows Explorer includes search capabilities in almost every nook and cranny. To see what I mean, take a look around the Windows Explorer view shown in .

So then: meet the new Explorer. Same as the old Explorer, right? Actually, there's been a major overhaul, and almost all enhancements are designed to help you search faster and more intuitively. There are six features you can utilize to help you find what you're looking for:

• Navigation Pane
• Forward and Back buttons
• Address bar
• Headings
• Search box
• File list

Figure 1-21: The Windows Explorer window provides several search possibilities

And although it may seem a bit elementary to use Windows Explorer, it is completely redesigned, so we'll spend a brief moment here looking at some of the individual search features.

If you're looking for something in a specific location, the Search box is probably the fastest way to find that information. Thanks to the Windows Indexing Service, the Search box quickly locates files based on filename, text within the file, metadata tags (explained in a bit), and other data associated with that file.

In fact, if you look in Explorer's Address bar after performing a search, the "location" will be identified as "Search Results in location." This is actually displaying the contents of a Search Folder, also known as a virtual folder. You can save these Search Folders for easy file organization on an ad hoc basis. You can learn more about creating and saving Search Folders in .

Virtual folders have a green-blue color. Normal directory folders are shown using the old manila standby.

Let's say, for example, that you have a document in your Documents folder that's about auditing. But the file's actual title is something such as Important Accounting Info.docx. Can you still locate what you're looking for?

Yes, you can; just follow these two easy steps:

1. Choose the Documents folder using either the Navigation Pane or the list of Favorites (still technically in the Navigation Pane).

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The New Task Scheduler

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The Task Scheduler makes computing life easier by letting you automate certain routine jobs. This ability is not new to Windows Vista, although the Vista Task Scheduler application most certainly is.

As you will note, the Task Scheduler's "pane" appearance is much like that of Outlook 2003/2007, with a console tree in the left pane, the Task List in the middle pane, and an Actions pane on the right. The Task List is further divided into top and bottom panes, with the Task Preview (Properties) pane showing below a selected task in the top. So even though I describe how to access a task's Properties dialog box in the instructions that follow, there's really no need.

Further, you can show/hide the Task Scheduler pane with the toolbar buttons and the View menu options.

Here's how to use the Task Scheduler to make life easier. Stepping through this procedure also serves as a good way to get familiar with the new interface and tone of the new Vista wizards:

1. Open the Task Scheduler. It's one of your system tools located under the Accessories grouping. You may be prompted for an administrator password if you're not already logged on as administrator.
2. In the Task Scheduler's program window, look at the Action pane on the righthand side. These are the same actions you'd find under the Action menu. Choose Create a Basic Task.
3. Give the task a name and, optionally, a description. Note that every task must have a name and that the name must be unique to the task. Click Next.
4. You're now presented with several options:
   • For a calendar-based task, choose either Daily, Weekly, Monthly, or "One time." Click Next to specify the exact dates for the task.
   • For tasks based on particular events, such as "When the computer starts" or "When I log on," choose one of these two options.
   • For scheduling based on other nonrecurring events, choose the "When a specific event occurs" option. You'll then specify the event information after clicking Next.
5. As shown in , the task can then perform one of three distinct actions. It can:

   Start a program automatically

   Choose "Start a program," and then Next, where you'll choose which program will run.

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Vista SideShow

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Another interesting new feature of Windows Vista that's worth a mention is something called the Windows SideShow. SideShow is a little tricky to explain; it clicks once you see a SideShow-enabled device.

For instance, you won't see the Vista SideShow on your laptop or desktop computer per se, but rather just configure it there using the dialog box shown in . To launch the SideShow window, just type side in the Start menu's Search box. Windows SideShow should appear in the list of programs.

Figure 1-27: Configure Windows SideShow

You can get a hint of what SideShow is used for by looking at this configuration window. From here, you'll tell one of the installed gadgets to send information to a SideShow-enabled device, which will be listed on the right. (Note that in I don't have a SideShow-enabled device.)

So, just what is a SideShow-enabled device, and why would I want one? Well, imagine reading your last few emails using a remote control. And I'm not talking about pointing the remote at a Vista computer with Media Center, mind you; I'm talking about checking email on a little screen in the remote control itself, while the Vista computer is turned off.

That's what Windows SideShow can do with a SideShow-enabled device. SideShow devices can let you perform simple little tasks such as checking your latest email, scrolling through a list of contacts, or looking through photos on your Vista machine, even while the machine where these files reside is powered off. SideShow-enabled devices include laptops, remotes, mobile phones, and even messenger bags with little external LCD screens built right in. provides a glimpse of a SideShow-enabled messenger bag in development from a company called Eleksen.

Figure 1-28: A SideShow-enabled device

That's right. With a contraption such as this, you could look up a contact's mobile phone number without opening the laptop, or get the latest weather information courtesy of a Vista gadget that's sending information to SideShow.

Now, as of this writing, there aren't too many Windows SideShow-enabled devices. They should start arriving in stores around mid-2007. As a result, I can't really give a lot of setup instruction on configuring SideShow devices; steps will vary from device to device. Even the Microsoft help pages on the subject will tell you to refer to manufacturer documentation for installation steps.

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Vista's New Printing Options

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Vista even includes new options for producing printed output, thanks to a redesigned print architecture. The Vista print architecture is built on a technology called the Windows Presentation Foundation (WPF). WPF enhances printed content in several ways, including the following:

• Improved color management
• Removal of GDI-based print limitations
• Better support of advanced print effects such as gradients and transparencies
• Enhanced support of color laser printers
• Easier printing of pictures
• Support for the XML Paper Specification (XPS)

Probably the most significant of these is the support for XPS. What's the big whoop? The XPS print path (XPS document writer) lets you create .xps files using any Windows program. You can then view these files on any computer that has an XPS viewer installed, even if that computer doesn't have the program that originally installed the application.

If the preceding description got you thinking Portable Document File, or PDF (I don't just use italics off the cuff here), you've pretty much got the idea, although XPS will not (at least for now) support every function available in a .pdf. Adobe wants to make money off its technology and all.

At any rate, here's how to print using the new XPS Document Writer:

1. First, open the file you want to print to the .xps format, and choose Print. (You usually can find this under the application's File menu, although some applications, such as Microsoft Word 2007, no longer have a File menu.)
2. Using the app's Print dialog box, select Microsoft XPS Document Writer, as shown in .
3. Click OK.
4. Because you're printing to a file (logical) rather than to a print device (physical), you're now prompted for a filename and location where you want to save the .xps file. Your Documents folder is the default.

Figure 1-29: Print to XPS to facilitate easy document sharing

For printers that support it, Vista makes the XPS print path available to physical devices as well. Microsoft claims that for What's On documents with intensive graphics, XPS printers are expected to produce better-quality prints than GDI printers.

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Summary

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This chapter covered what's new and different in Windows Vista. We'd be here another 100 pages or so if I covered everything, so I just picked the things I thought were the most improved over previous versions, or would have the biggest impact on your Vista computing experience. The objective is to get you up and running as quickly as possible; we'll get more into the meat and potatoes of Vista administration in the chapters that follow. If this chapter helps you make the business case for your/your company's move to Vista, all the better. You've heard that Vista is going to be easier to use and more secure, and that it's going to be a breakthrough computing experience; now you can associate specific features with these descriptions.

One thing that Vista administrators must possess is a clear understanding of the different Vista versions. Right now, there are five distinct flavors of Windows Vista: Home Basic, Home Premium, Business, Enterprise, and Ultimate. In the next chapter, we'll look at each version in detail so that you'll be able to make more informed decisions about which version is right for your enterprise (it's probably not Home Basic). As you will see, not every version will support every feature, so it's vital to have this information before making your purchase.

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Chapter 2: A Look at the Different Versions

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In , we examined many of the new features that separate Windows Vista from its predecessors. There's a caveat, however: some of these new features that you're eager to put through the paces are available on only certain Vista versions.

Don't try to implement BitLocker, for example, on the Home Basic version. You won't find it there. And upgrading to Home Premium will bring you little satisfaction if BitLocker is the goal.

If you bring home your work-issued laptop and plan to use it to record television programs for later viewing because you heard Windows Vista includes the Media Center as a built-in application, you might be in for a surprise. Although you'd be correct in your assumption that Vista no longer treats the Media Center as a separate application, you didn't factor in the reality that this application isn't available on all Vista editions. There isn't necessarily anything wrong with the scenario just mentioned—you might want to record the local evening news, which is running a piece about your latest product release, for example—but you've brought the wrong tool for the job. In the example just mentioned, in which you want a computer to easily exist happily in both a home and a business environment, the Business edition won't fit the bill. Ultimate is the solution you're looking for.

This chapter, then, is a brief overview of the five different flavors of Windows Vista: Home Basic, Home Premium, Business, Enterprise, and Ultimate. In many ways, you can think of this chapter as a companion piece to 's overview of new features; I just didn't want to create an opening chapter that ran into the 80- to 100-page ballpark. After all, there are a lot of features in the Windows Vista product suite, and keeping track of them can be a chore. Yet this is vital information to have when it comes to making purchasing and technology deployment decisions.

So, then, I've taken on the chore of briefing you on the Vista components so that they're all in one place. After reading the chapter, you'll be better able to recall which version supports what feature, information that can be a big help the next time you're about to get out your credit card at a retailer, or customize your system build from your favorite manufacturer's web site.

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Five Vista Versions

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As of the release-to-manufacturer (RTM) time—meaning that Microsoft has shipped the final code so that computer makers can start building systems with Vista preinstalled—five versions of Windows Vista are available in the U.S. market. The different editions are specifically tailored to meet the needs of varying operating system scenarios. Two are designed for the home user, two are meant to operate in a secure business environment, and one, Vista Ultimate, has the capability to happily exist in both. Here are the formal titles:

• Windows Vista Home Basic
• Windows Vista Home Premium
• Windows Vista Business
• Windows Vista Enterprise
• Windows Vista Ultimate

We'll discuss the characteristics of each under a separate heading, starting with the Home Basic edition.

There are actually many more versions than this. My European readers, of whom there will be many, no doubt, may be using a version called Vista version N, which is essentially Vista with the Media Player stripped out of the default install in order to comply with an EU antitrust resolution. Also available in what Microsoft refers to as emerging markets is the Windows Vista Starter edition. Designed for users for whom Vista might be their first operating system, the Starter edition includes additional tools and tutorials to make it easier to use. The biggest difference in the Starter edition, however, is the price.

The Vista Starter edition is not available in "high-income" markets such as the United States, Canada, the European Union, Australia, and New Zealand. Features that apply only to the Starter edition will not be covered in this book.

The Windows Vista Home Basic edition is geared toward home users who want to take advantage of several of the new security and search capabilities included with Vista. In the following few sections is an overview of what to expect with a purchase of Home Basic.

Section 2.1.1.1: Instant Search

I introduced the Instant Search capability in , in the section "." This is because it's one of the most significant changes to the operating system, especially when compared to Windows XP. To briefly review, Instant Search is a huge boon in the age of the 300+ GB hard drive. (I'm referring mainly to desktops; by the time this book hits the shelves, no doubt, this median will apply equally to laptop machines as well.)

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Windows Vista on a Tablet PC

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Computers are great at handling typed text, no doubt: typing is neat, clean, and easily digitized, which means that text can then be easily saved, reproduced, and transmitted to others.

So in the 21st century, there's no longer any need for handwriting, right? Every time a human needs to write something, he can just look for his nearest laptop computer. Countless trees can be saved, and we'll never lose that important phone number we scored last night when doing a load of laundry.

Not so fast. Humans are tactile creatures, and there are still lots of instances in which nothing beats grabbing a pen and sheet of paper to scribble down a thought or two. Besides the mission-critical task just referenced, handwriting usually trumps keyboard and mouse in these situations:

• A doctor visits a patient and writes notes about care or a prescription.
• A mother takes notes while on the phone with her child's teacher.
• A husband jots directions to a florist he'll visit on the way home.
• A foreman updates project information while visiting a construction site.
• A student follows along with her professor's lecture.
• A secretary takes notes at a company meeting.

What's more, many of these tasks can be enhanced by the ability to leverage a computer's capability to save, recall, and transmit that handwriting. Would it be easier for the student to refer to class notes if they were stored on a computer rather than in a spiral notebook? How about the foreman with his notes on construction progress? Would it be easier to email notes to a supplier, or travel back to the office, transpose, and then do the same? What about those directions? Maybe you don't have time to run that errand today. How likely are you to find that Post-it note a week later?

The answer to many of these quandaries, and more, is a Tablet PC, of course, which seeks to bridge the gap between the digital and analog worlds of communication, making computer use as effortless as possible. It is also the focus of this chapter's second part.

And further, as you've already noticed, there's no longer a separate Tablet PC edition of Windows Vista as there was in Windows XP. Instead, all Tablet PC functionality is bundled into the Vista operating system itself, and is enabled automatically when Setup detects that the computer it's installing on is tablet-capable.

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Summary

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This chapter has a single purpose. It exists to help answer one question: what's the difference between the versions of Windows Vista? As you can see, that answer has many components, and you've really gotten only a brief introduction to the topic.

We spend the time here to categorize the Vista versions for several reasons: it helps us understand the choices we have when making a purchase. If you're buying a laptop computer for home use, do you want Vista Home Basic or Home Premium? Hopefully now you'll be able to make a more informed decision. If you're purchasing for a company upgrade with 70 users, is it OK to get the Business edition, or might it be a better investment to look into Microsoft Volume Licensing to get the Enterprise version? And how does Ultimate fit into this picture? Might it be more cost-effective to just get the entire Vista code base?

Also, this chapter works in conjunction with the previous chapter to help set the foundation for the rest of the book. In the chapters that follow, you'll see further discussion of BitLocker Drive Encryption, the new Backup and Restore Center, and how to enable network sharing of documents. But on which editions of Vista will these features apply? With this chapter as a reference, you'll be able to quickly jog your memory.

In the next chapter, we'll leave the foundation-setting behind and start rolling up our sleeves, delving into some everyday Vista administrative tasks. We'll start with a look at Vista network administration, including how to join a domain and how to set up a wireless connection.

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Chapter 3: Networking with Windows Vista

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During the course of your Windows Vista administration, I'll guess that roughly half of your work will fall under the guise of what could more generally be described as network administration—getting Vista computers to talk to other Vista computers, to other Windows computers, and just to other computers in general.

You can achieve this using a wide array of methods, some of which may require a wide range of computing know-how. That's exactly the focus of this chapter. Obviously, it's a big topic, one to which entire books have been devoted. There's a reason this chapter is longer than the others in this book.

It could be argued—convincingly, in my opinion—that the network is the "killer app" that spurred the revolution that Bill Gates famously envisioned back in his days as a Harvard undergrad: a computer on every desktop. The network was the reason many people purchased their first PC, and the same remains true today. A large portion of the globe is still discovering the power of sitting at one computer and grabbing information stored on another.

There have been several significant changes to the networking behavior and tools employed by Windows Vista, and certainly we'll spend time on many of these new features, such as native support for IP version 6, the new Wireless connection window, and the Network and Sharing Center.

Fortunately, however, many of these changes are "under the hood" and probably won't require any significant changes in the way you administer Vista networks. For most connections, you'll enable a Windows Vista machine as a Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol (DHCP) client, and then you'll make sure it belongs to the proper logical grouping of computers. Just like before, you'll have two options: to join either a workgroup or a domain.

But, of course, real Vista network administration just gets started at the point where most Vista users stop thinking about it altogether. You sometimes won't want your system to use an automatic IP address, and you'll have to configure some connections manually.

More important than just making the network connection is actually

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Joining a Windows Server Domain

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Vista setup, especially if you're upgrading a computer from Windows XP, assumes that you have an active network connection. And for the time being, so will I. Along with the ability to communicate with other computers comes an important setup decision: whether the computer will join a Windows workgroup or a Windows server-based domain.

But before making this decision, we must first understand the difference between a domain and a workgroup. Along the way, we also answer a central question: should I join a domain, or is a workgroup network configuration all I need? OK, fair enough. That was two questions.

Let's look at the differences now.

A domain is a logical collection of computer things. What kinds of things? Users, computers, groups, printers, shared resources, and the objects and services that manage them are things that are collected, stored, and managed within a Windows server domain.

And, of course, the key word in that last sentence was managed. A domain is a collection, but more important, it represents a security boundary that is used to help administrators of companies maintain all the computer systems within their environment. The domain is distinguished by three chief hallmarks:

• One user, one account, which leads to
• Centralized administration, which leads to
• A more secure computing enterprise

In practice, a domain allows administrators to set up user accounts in one central location: the domain controller. (Multiple domain controllers can be deployed throughout the domain, by the way, but they will all store a copy of the same database of domain accounts.)

Users can then use these accounts from any computer that is also part of the domain because logon requests are fielded not by the client computers, but centrally, by the domain controllers.

Finally, administrators can secure these accounts throughout the environment using policies that control the security, appearance, permissions, and overall use of the computing resources. All of these policies are (can be) created from a centralized location: again, the domain controller.

A Windows server domain environment also affords administrators greater flexibility. When a change is necessary—a person makes a

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Configuring TCP/IP

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Just as people communicate using a language, so do computers in a network. And the language spoken by Windows Vista—along with just about every other computer on the planet today—is the Transmission Control Protocol/Internet Protocol, better known by its acronym, TCP/IP.

The TCP/IP settings on your machine will in many ways be the foundation for a happy computing experience. Without them, you can forget about sending an email, surfing the Web, chatting, remote access, accessing a shared folder, receiving a software update, letting a gadget receive a weather update . . . OK, I've made my point, and you already know all this anyway.

Without a fairly good understanding of TCP/IP, administrators are very limited, and will likely spend many laborious hours of troubleshooting to get computers to talk to one another.

Fortunately, not much has changed in the upgrade to Windows Vista in terms of basic functionality. Yes, there are some new features, and yes, some of them are quite significant, such as the inclusion of IP version 6. But functionally speaking, if you know how to install a network card and set it to "Obtain an IP address automatically," most of the time you'll be in good shape. ( includes the instructions for installing hardware devices.)

In other words, although the click-steps and tools might take a bit of getting used to, the underlying goal of the administrator will remain the same.

One of the most interesting new changes to the Vista operating system is its support of IP version 6. Why IP version 6? In short, because it was feared at one time that the world would run out of IP addresses as more devices and households and companies attached themselves to the Internet. In fact, that fear exists because indeed, we will run out of IP version 4 addresses. Someday. (I still think this is rather amazing: when you're connected to the Internet, you're connected to every single other computer on the Internet as well. I didn't say it was terribly relevant, just that it was amazing.)

That day hasn't arrived yet, however, because of the many complementary IP v4 technologies, such as Network Address Translation (NAT) and proxy servers (which in turn run NAT). These technologies not only have helped to keep company and other networks more secure, but have also provided the added benefit of reducing the number of public IP addresses needed for communication. An entire company of 100 computers might need only a single IP address to provide all external connection requirements. Multiply this by the millions, and you can see where this technology has helped to conserve the world's pool of IP addresses.

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Vista Networking Tools

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Even though Vista includes support for a relatively new networking protocol, you'll probably still use an older protocol—IP version 4—to connect to and exchange data with most of the other network computers you encounter.

With the Vista networking tools, however, you will definitely be using some of the new bells and whistles. But once you see these tools in action, I think you'll agree that they represent a more intuitive and yet more powerful way of both setting up and managing network connections.

Here are some of the many new Vista networking tools and technologies:

• The Network and Sharing Center
• The Network Map
• Network Discovery
• Wireless Network Connection
• Creating a Network Location

Let's examine each of these now, starting with the hub of all Vista network activity, the new Network and Sharing Center.

The new Network and Sharing Center is designed to assist the home user in setting up and sharing her documents and printers securely from one easy location. It's available on all Vista versions, but will likely be put to use most often in these flavors:

• Home Basic
• Home Premium
• Ultimate

There are several ways to quickly open the Network and Sharing Center, including these:

• Choose Network in the Start menu, and then click the Network and Sharing Center button located in the Windows Explorer toolbar.
• Double-click the Network and Sharing Center icon in the Control Panel.
• Right-click the Network item on either the Start menu or the desktop (if applicable) and choose Properties.
• Click the little network icon in the System Tray and then choose Network and Sharing Center from the context menu. (A right-click will work as well.)

No matter how you open it, you'll end up seeing the dialog box shown in .

Figure 3-9: The new Vista Network and Sharing Center

So what's here? As do many Control Panel consoles, the Network and Sharing Center features an extensive list of tasks on the lefthand side. Naturally, the ones in the Network and Sharing Center have to do with connecting to resources and sharing resources on the local machine. Using these links in the Network and Sharing Center, users or administrators will be able to perform the following actions:

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Wireless Networking

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As you've seen already, Windows Vista includes a number of specific improvements geared to the mobile user, and few things are more convenient and beneficial to the mobile user than the ability to connect to a wireless network.

Vista has indeed introduced several changes to the process of connecting to a wireless network, all geared toward making the experience easier but without sacrificing security. After all, just because you connect to a Wi-Fi hotspot while swilling a latte doesn't mean you want all those other bohemians hacking your personal information.

What's more, many home network admins don't realize that in setting up a wireless network, they have just provided free Internet access for their neighbors as well. If you're inclined not to care about this and see it as your small way of sticking it to the man, fine, but also realize that an open wireless network can provide a means to access personal information as well.

At the very least, Vista administrators should be aware of the risks involved when setting up wireless networks. They should also be able to take a few countermeasures against hackers when necessary.

Making a connection to a wireless network is easier than ever with Windows Vista. As in Windows XP, most users will start the connection process by right-clicking the Network icon in the System Tray. In Vista, the next step is to choose "Connect to a network" from the context menu.

In fact, if you're not already connected, the System Tray even notifies you when a wireless network is available.

Here's the entire process:

1. In the System Tray, right-click the Network icon and choose "Connect to a network" from the context menu. Alternatively, you can use the Start menu and click on the Connect To item. Either way, you'll see the dialog box shown in .
   

   Figure 3-18: Connecting to a wireless network
2. As you can see, the connection process from here is straightforward. All you have to do is select the desired network and click Connect.
3. If the network is unsecured, you'll see the yellow shield icon beside it. If the connection is security-enabled, you'll be prompted for the preshared key, as seen in .

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Using the Network

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As we've discussed already, many of the new features of Vista have focused on making the desktop and networking experience more secure than ever before. And with good reason: studies indicate that as many as 80 percent of PCs are unprotected, and thus are candidates to be used by hackers to send spam and advertisements. But most of Vista's new security features are turned on by default, ensuring that even the most casual user experiences a more secure environment.

For example, Vista installs with the firewall enabled. It also includes a new Network and Sharing Center that makes configuration changes much easier. As seen in , it is now quite easy to quickly see whether file and printer sharing is enabled. You can then disable or change settings with just a few clicks.

Figure 3-27: File and printer sharing options in the Network and Sharing Center

One big change in the way users connect to networks is the selection of the network type at connection time. As we examined previously, when connecting to a network for the first time, you're asked whether you're connecting to one of three types of networks, as listed here and shown in :

• Home
• Work
• Public

Figure 3-28: Specifying network type to configure default security settings

The Windows Firewall blocks all incoming traffic until you specify a setting. The most secure default choice is to use the public setting. This selection hides your system and turns off automatic discovery protocols so that other computers nearby cannot access your system using a browse list.

In any network where you don't have complete knowledge of the settings, I recommend the public network setting.

Why does this dialog box provide such a big improvement over past connection behavior? Because in previous Windows versions, the firewall and network sharing settings would not adapt to the network. You could open ports on your computer to enable file and printer sharing when connected to work, for example, but those same ports would still be open when using the network at a hotel. Now, Vista lets you change network configuration with a single click.

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Offline Files

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With offline files, you can work with files stored on a network server even if you're not connected to that server, allowing you to access the same set of data regardless of whet