Microsoft updates Windows Vista test code

In its first update to a new community-based preview program, Microsoft is showing off a number of new features for Windows Vista, including efforts to improve the Web browser and make the operating system more resilient.

Monday’s release is intended to be the start of a wave of monthly updates to the Community Technology Preview (CTP), which Microsoft uses to gather feedback more quickly than would be possible from using only a traditional beta program. The update includes a number of new features, including improved printing from within Internet Explorer 7, as well as a new Mobility Center, that groups together a host of laptop options, including new power management settings.

“There are a lot of changes,” Mike Burk, a Microsoft product manager for Windows Vista, said. “What we are trying to do is make sure that we are steadily progressing.”

Monday’s release also includes, for the first time:

• a “Network Center,” that acts as a central spot for managing network connections, replacing the “My Network Places” and “Network Neighborhood” from Windows XP

• tools for authoring and digitally signing documents in the new XML Paper Specification (XPS) format, code-named Metro

• an early version of Windows Media Player 11

• new network and PC diagnostic tools that can, for example, detect when a disk is likely to fail, warn users and prompt them with ways to back up their data.

“One of things we’re trying to do is make sure that PCs are able to fix themselves in a way that they haven’t been able to in the past,” Burk said.

Full article: ZDNet News