Windows Vista
Windows Vista Ultimate Edition
Windows Vista is the official successor of Windows XP, and currently one of the most widespread operating systems worldwide. Windows XP is still leading in the number of overall installations, but Vista holds about 25% of the market as well.
During development, Vista was known under its "Longhorn" codename, and was officially named and released on November 8, 2006. The release came more than 5 years after XP - one of the longest intervals between successive OS releases by Microsoft in history. Vista contains numerous new features, with a completely new visual style called "Aero", various multimedia and convenience tools like the new Windows Media Player 11, an updated filesystem, and a lot more. It has 8 different editions, ranging from Starter, over Home Basic, Home Premium, Business, Enterprise to Ultimate. It also has separate versions for embedded systems, and 64 bit versions of all editions.
Initial reception of Windows Vista was reserved. There was a lot of criticism regarding system performance, incompatibility issues, and bugs. Microsoft responded with 2 large Service Packs and many smaller automated patches, which have addressed many of the issues. Still, there were numerous reports of corporate and private users "downgrading" their systems back from Vista to XP. According to polls, the general customer satisfaction with Vista, ranging about 10% of "very satisfied", is significantly lower than with other operating systems, in particularly XP, with roughly 40% "very satisfied".
The official successor of Windows Vista is Windows 7.
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