How Microsoft® Windows Vista™ Works

Introduction

Five years in the making, and here it is—another new version of Microsoft Windows.

Windows Vista is the latest in a long line of Windows operating systems, carrying the tradition first started in 1985 with the appropriately named Windows 1.0. That first version of Windows is only vaguely familiar to today’s users, as Microsoft has made a lot of improvements since those humble beginnings. Of course, a lot besides Windows has changed in the past twenty years; the one constant is that a Microsoft operating system remains the face of personal computing.

It’s that face users will first notice when they power on a PC running Windows Vista. Put simply, Vista looks different from previous versions of Windows. Oh, there are the expected windows ...