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Windows Vista is the latest release of Microsoft Windows, a line of graphical Operating System used on personal computers,
including home and business desktops. According to Microsoft, Windows Vista contains hundreds of new features; some of the most significant include enhanced security, an updated graphical user interface and visual style dubbed Windows Aero improved searching features, new multimedia creation tools such as Windows DVD Maker, and completely redesigned networking, audio, print, and display sub-systems. Vista also aims to increase the level of communication between machines on a home network making it easier to share files and digital media between computers and devices.

Some New Features

• Windows Aero: a new hardware-based graphical user interface, named Windows Aero – an acronym (possibly a backrony) for Authentic, Energetic, Reflective, and Open. The new interface is intended to be cleaner and more aesthetically pleasing than those of previous Windows, including new transparencies, animations and eye candy.
• Windows Shell: The new Windows shell is significantly different from Windows XP, offering a new range of organization, navigation, and search capabilities. The Start menu has changed as well; it no longer uses ever-expanding boxes when navigating through Programs. Even the word "Start" itself has been removed in favor of a blue Windows Orb (also called "Pearl").
• Windows Search (also known as Instant Search or search as you type): significantly faster and more thorough search capabilities. Search boxes have been added to the Start menu, Windows Explorer, and several of the applications included with Vista. By default, Instant Search indexes only a small number of folders such as the start menu, the names of files opened, the Documents folder, and the user's e-mail. Advanced options allow to choose for a specific file type how it should be indexed, the properties only or the properties and the file contents or exclude it.
• Windows Sidebar: A transparent panel anchored to the side of the screen where a user can place Desktop Gadgets, which are small applets designed for a specialized purpose (such as displaying the weather or sports scores). Gadgets can also be placed on other parts of the Desktop, if desired.
• Windows Media Player 11, a major revamp of Microsoft's program for playing and organizing music and video. New features in this version include word wheeling (or "search as you type"), a completely new and highly graphical interface for the media library, photo display and organization, and the ability to share music libraries over a network with other Vista machines, Xbox 360 integration, and support for other Media Center Extenders.
• Backup and Restore Center: Includes a backup and restore application that gives users the ability to schedule periodic backups of files on their computer, as well as recovery from previous backups. Backups are incremental, storing only the changes each time, minimizing the disk usage. It also features CompletePC Backup (available only to Ultimate, Business, and Enterprise versions) which backs up an entire computer as an image onto a hard disk or DVD. CompletePC Backup can automatically recreate a machine setup onto new hardware or hard disk in case of any hardware failures.
• Windows Mail: A replacement for Outlook Express that includes a completely replaced mail store that improves stability, and enables real-time search. It has the Phishing Filter like IE7 and a Junk mail filtering which is enhanced through regular updates via Windows Update.

• Windows Calendar is a new calendar and task application.
• Windows Photo Gallery, a photo and movie library management application. WPG can import from digital cameras, tag and rate individual items, adjust colors and exposure, create and display slideshows (with pan and fade effects), and burn slideshows to DVD.
• Windows DVD Maker, a companion program to Windows Movie Maker, which provides the ability to create video DVDs based on a user's content.
• Games: Every game included with Windows has been rewritten to take advantage of Vista's new graphics capabilities. New games include Chess Titans, Mahjong Titans and Purble Place, The Games section will also hold links and information to all games on the user's computer. One piece of information that will be shown is the game's ESRB rating.
• Windows Mobility Center is a new control panel that centralizes the most relevant information related to mobile computing (e.g. brightness, sound, battery level / power scheme selection, wireless network, screen orientation, presentation settings, etc.).
• Parental controls: Allows administrators to control which websites, programs, and games each standard user can use and install.
• Windows SideShow: Enables the auxiliary displays on newer laptops or on supported Windows Mobile devices. It is meant to be used to display Device gadgets while the computer is on or off.
• Speech recognition is fully integrated into Vista. It is an improved version of Microsoft Speech Recognition currently working under Office 2003, with a better interface, a rich and flexible set of commands, and an extensive command-and-control capability to activate the computer by voice. Unlike the Office 2003 version, which works only in Office and WordPad, it works for dictation system-wide. In addition, it currently supports several languages: English US and UK, Spanish, French, German, Chinese (Traditional and Simplified), and Japanese.
• New fonts, including several designed especially for screen reading, and new high-quality Chinese (Yahei, JhengHei), Japanese (Meiryo) and Korean (Malgun) fonts. See Windows Vista typefaces. ClearType has also been enhanced and enabled by default.
• Problem Reports and Solutions, a new control panel which allows users to see previously sent problems and any solutions or additional information that is available.