For those enterprises with a geographically diverse workforce, the inclusion of these new security features will be aligned with their unmet needs today. Microsoft has learned well from previous generations of their operating systems when it comes to enterprise deployment, by including modularization of components including multilingual support, inclusion of Windows Imaging, and Nondestructive Imaging, and the ability of system administrators to complete unattended installations. This has been a long-standing requirement from enterprise users.
Summary
Windows Vista's long development cycle is attributable to the decision by Microsoft executives to move towards a security-intensive development methodology, and also design an operating system that was specifically developed to meet the unmet needs of enterprise system administrators who have the daunting task of managing literally thousands of PCs at a time. As evaluations in many it organizations continue as of today (February 2007) the proof of increased performance by Microsoft of their redesigned subsystems will be eventually reflected in their sales of this operating system.
References
Galli, Peter. "Pushing Forward" PC Week Column by Peter Galli. PC Week Magazine and Website. July 30, 2001. Accessed from the Internet on February 14, 2007 from location:
http://www.eweek.com/article2/0,1759,113701,00.asp
Howard, Michael. "How do they do it? A look Inside the Security Development Lifecycle at Microsoft" MSDN Magazine and Website. November, 2005
Accessed from the Internet on February 14, 2007 from location: http://msdn.microsoft.com/msdnmag/issues/05/11/SDL/default.aspx
Microsoft.
Media Alert: Microsoft Unveils Official Name for "Longhorn" and Sets Date for First Beta Targeted at Developers and it Professionals." Information for Journalists. July 22, 2005. Accessed from the Internet on February 14, 2007 from location:
http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/press/2005/jul05/07-22LHMA.mspx
Informal history of Longhorn then Windows Vista builds
Build 3683 - Leaked November 19, 2002. First public leak of Windows "Longhorn." This build is from Lab 06; contained extras from the Avalon lab that are not seen in other builds (new...
Some features were broken, such as Internet Explorer downloads. (lab06_N.)
Build 3718 - Leaked April 30, 2004. (lab06_N.)
Build 4008 - Leaked February 28, 2003. Second leak. Contained a cleaner version of the "Plex" visual style; Internet Explorer downloads fixed, more sidebar tiles. (main.)
Build 4015 - Leaked April 2003. Third Leak. We prefer to call this the build from hell. Not much different from 4008, except the new style taskbar was enabled by default and could only be disabled by turning off the sidebar. This build consumed HUGE amounts of memory in very little time. (main.)
Build 4029 - Leaked September 23, 2003. Fourth leak. Displayed the beginnings of the new style Explorer windows, contained a new sidebar clock. (main.)
Build 4051 - Released October 25, 2003. Released at the Professional Developer Conference, this build was supposed to be quite stable, as it was the first developer preview of Longhorn, but it ended up being horrible as far as being able to develop and test sidebar tiles went. It just leaked too much memory which hindered the ability to do anything useful with it. Introduction of the "Slate" theme, "Plex" was removed. (idx02.)
Build 4053 - Leaked March 1, 2004. Explorer memory leak seems to have been fixed for the most part. More responsive than 4051. (main.)
Build 4074 - Released at the WinHEC Engineering Conference on May 4, 2004. New features include the Jade theme, more sidebar tiles, etc. (4074.idx02.)
Build 4083 - Leaked November 10, 2005. This build is a stripped down version of Longhorn and only works on 64-bit proccessors. (4083.main.)
Build 5048 - Released at the WinHEC Conference on April 25, 2005. Memory leak seems to be non-existant now. (5048.winmain_idx02.)
Build 5112 - Released to offical beta testers on July 27, 2005. First build released with the name "Windows Vista." Includes full Aero Glass support and IE 7. First offical beta. (5112.winmain_beta1.)
Build 5219 - Leaked from PDC 2005 on September 14th. The ISO image was found on a computer at the show and transferred to an iPod and leaked from there. This build brings back the sidebar that has been missing since 4074. (5219.winmain_idx02.)
