Windows Aero Windows Vista introduces a new
user experience based on a
user interface and
visual style called
Windows Aero (a backronym for Authentic, Energetic, Reflective, and Open). Microsoft intended for Windows Aero to be aesthetically pleasing, and cleaner than interfaces in previous versions of Windows. Windows Aero introduces blurred, translucent glass window frames; dynamic light effects; dynamic
taskbar thumbnail previews of open windows; and window animations facilitated by the new
Desktop Window Manager. Moreover, Windows Aero encompasses new sets of
cursors, fonts (the
Segoe UI typeface), notifications, sounds, and
wizards, as well as revisions to prose and tone of text used throughout the operating system. Windows Aero is available in the Home Premium, Business, Enterprise, and Ultimate
Windows Vista editions. All editions of Windows Vista include a new Windows Vista Basic theme with updated visuals; it is equivalent to
Luna of
Windows XP in that it does not rely on a
compositing window manager. Blurred glass translucencies, light effects, live thumbnails, and window animations of Windows Aero are not available with Windows Vista Basic. The Home Basic edition of Windows Vista additionally includes a unique Windows Vista Standard theme (having the same hardware requirements of Windows Aero) but Windows Vista Standard does not provide Windows Aero features such as blurred glass translucency or dynamic taskbar thumbnails.
Windows Explorer Arrangement and visualization The leftward
Task Pane of Windows XP has been replaced by an upward Command Bar that provides the same contextual tasks and file operation commands. The Navigation Pane can now be enabled with these commands and tasks always available; in Windows XP, it was necessary to switch between the Navigation Pane and the Task Pane — both were not available simultaneously. The Navigation Pane itself has been updated to host optional Favorite Links. The
menu bar is hidden by default, but it can be displayed with the key. The
address bar has been modified to present a
breadcrumbs view, which shows the full path to the current location; clicking any location in the breadcrumb hierarchy navigates to that location, which eliminates the need to go back multiple times or up multiple directories—the Up button is removed accordingly. It is also possible to navigate to any subfolder of any parent folder of the current hierarchy by using the arrow between folders. Groups of items can now be contracted and expanded, and group headings can be clicked on to select all items belonging in specific groups. Groups additionally now feature the number of items in each group. If a user does not have permission to access an object, a new dialog box with an option to assign permissions appears (
Click Continue to get access to this folder). If the user has been denied access to the object even after clicking
Continue, a message with a hyperlink to the
Security tab belonging to the corresponding object appears so that a user with the required permissions and privileges can change ownership of, and access to the object. In previous versions of Windows the user was only informed that access was denied, with no immediate, visible option for conflict resolution.
Icons Icons in Windows Vista are visually more realistic than illustrative. Icons are scalable in size up to 256 × 256 pixels. Required icon sizes are , , and ; optional sizes are , , , , and . Icons now display thumbnails depicting the actual contents of files. New media overlays are available for photo, track, and video thumbnails, which are now distinguished by an overlay of the icon of the application assigned as the default for the respective file types. File icon viewing modes are Extra Large, Large, Medium, Small, List, Details, and Tiles. It is possible to transition between icon viewing modes with an incremental slider or by holding down the key and scrolling with the mouse scroll wheel. To reduce the size of large icons, icons may be stored as compressed
PNGs; to maintain backward compatibility with earlier versions of Windows, only larger sized icons can use lossless PNG. In Windows XP icon view modes included
Thumbnails,
Tiles,
Icons,
List,
Details and, in folders with photographs, an additional
Filmstrip view; these modes could be switched individually between by means of a
View context menu option or a
Views toolbar button. With Windows Vista icon view modes include
Extra Large Icons,
Medium Icons,
Small Icons,
List,
Details, and
Tiles. Moreover, a new View Control has been introduced that enables incremental zooming between icon sizes; over 60 icon sizes for items in the Shell are available through the new View Control.
Metadata and organization Windows Explorer in Windows Vista introduces significant changes from previous versions of Windows for the organization and visualization of items. Column header (property) controls are now available in all icon viewing modes in Windows Explorer (in Windows XP and earlier they were only available in Details view) and provide enhanced filtering, grouping, and sorting capabilities. New split buttons now appear next to column headers that, when clicked, display drop-down menus for column header properties for users to filter items by any property value of the selected column header. New organizational capabilities enabled by the
Windows Search Index and platform include
Stacks, which are collections of related items (depicted visually as a pile) assembled by a common property, and
Saved Searches, which are built by specifying predicates on item properties, and separate the concept of organization from the concept of location; A new
Details Pane allows users to add or change metadata of items (such as
Author or
Title) directly from within Windows Explorer — without requiring them to open the application that created the item or to open a separate dialog box. Many more properties are exposed to the Windows Shell in Windows Vista than in Windows XP. For instance, it is now possible to query for photos based on types of
camera flashes or whether a camera flash was used at all. Windows Vista includes built-in support for Microsoft Office documents and other types of items; support for metadata belonging to new types or other unrecognized types can be added by writing
Property Handlers for the types. Unlike previous versions of Windows, all metadata is stored within items in Windows Vista to ensure that it is not lost when items are copied to a CD-ROM, moved across machines or partitions, or sent as attachments in a message.
Sharing With Windows Vista, individual items can be shared; in previous versions of Microsoft Windows it was possible only to designate a folder as a share, set permissions on individual files and folders (which meant that users had to gather and organize all of the desired items in the folder), then share the entire folder. A
Share button on the new Command Bar appears when selecting both files and folders in Windows Vista — in Windows XP, the equivalent command on the Task Pane appeared only while a folder was selected — and there is a new context menu option (
Share...) to share files when a file is selected. Windows Vista introduces a new Sharing Wizard that displays users and groups with whom the current user can share; sharers can select local sharees on the current PC or those from
Active Directory, a
Windows domain, or a
workgroup when the sharer's PC is registered with a
domain controller. If the desired user is not available, there is an option to create a new user account. •
Reader: provides read-only access to all shared resources •
Contributor: provides read-only access to all shared resources, also allowing the sharee to add items and modify or delete the items they have added •
Co-owner: allows the sharee to access, modify, or delete shared resources or resource permissions When an item has been shared, the Sharing Wizard additionally includes an option to automatically compose an email with an embedded hyperlink to the shared item so the recipient can easily access the file or folder. and the sharees with whom an item is shared; users can now arrange and search for items based on these details (for example, to find all items shared with a specific user or group). Because it can be difficult to find or remember each item that has been shared, as well as the users or groups with whom an item is shared, Windows Vista includes a
Shared By Me Saved Search specifically dedicated to displaying files and folders directly shared out by the current user. Additionally,
Windows Search SQL Syntax, which enables developers to issue SQL clauses and statements for queries is fully supported in Windows Vista. Windows Vista
out of the box includes six Saved Searches:
Recent Documents,
Recent E-mail,
Recent Pictures and Videos,
Recently Changed, and
Shared By Me. Users can create custom Saved Searches, customize preexisting ones, and build new Saved Searches on preexisting ones; when results of the previous Saved Search change, all Saved Searches that match the criteria will display the new results.
Windows Sidebar Windows Sidebar is an interface that hosts
Microsoft Gadgets, which are small applications designed for a particular purpose. Windows Sidebar is positioned rightward on the desktop, though users can place it leftward or detach gadgets to the desktop. Windows Vista includes
Calendar,
Clock,
Contacts,
CPU Meter,
Currency Conversion,
Feed Headlines,
Notes,
Picture Puzzle,
Slide Show,
Stocks, and
Weather gadgets. Microsoft hosted a Web gallery for users to download and install additional gadgets. Gadgets are written with a combination of
DHTML,
JScript, and
VBScript, and are individually packaged as GADGET files. A single gadget on the Windows Sidebar can also optionally be hosted at
Windows Live or on
Windows SideShow devices.
Live File System (UDF Packet Writing) Windows Vista introduced native support for
packet writing on
optical media, using the
Universal Disk Format (UDF) file system. This feature, known as
Live File System, makes writeable optical media act like
flash storage by allowing users to incrementally add, modify, move and delete files on recordable and rewriteable optical media such as
CD-R,
CD-RW,
DVD±R,
DVD±RW,
BD-R and
BD-RE. While the preceding Windows XP only supported reading UDF versions of up to 2.01 inside Windows Explorer, and relied on third-party software such as
InCD for packet writing file operations, Windows Vista natively supports all UDF versions ranging up to
UDF 2.60, used for
BD-R.
Live File System is supported with UDF version 1.50 and higher.
Default Programs A common issue in previous Windows versions was that competing applications doing common tasks each tried to associate themselves as the default for a certain file type using their own custom user interface. The default application information for a particular file type was stored in the registry on a per-machine basis, resulting in applications changing another user's default program when one user's defaults were changed and each application querying several different registry values when launched. In Windows Vista onwards,
file type associations and protocol handlers can be set on a per-user basis using the new
Default Programs API, meaning default programs for file types and tasks can be different for each individual user. There is an API for calling a common
user interface so applications no longer need to maintain their own file association UI. The Default Programs API gives applications a programmatic way to check for and discover other default applications, restore a single or all registered defaults, query for the owner of a specific default file association/protocol, launch the
Default Programs UI for a specific application or clear all per user associations. Applications only need to registered at install time to be part of
Default Programs.
Windows Flip and Flip 3D Windows Vista Home Premium, Business, Ultimate, and Enterprise support
Windows Flip, which displays a dynamic thumbnail of each open window—instead of an application icon for each window—on a Windows Aero glass surface and replaces the + interface of previous versions of Windows; and
Windows Flip 3D, which enables users to flip through a cascading stack of open windows by pressing +; releasing these keys selects the nearest application window. Users can retain Flip 3D after releasing the keyboard keys by pressing in addition to and . Pressing the key will flip through the stack of open windows in reverse. Flip 3D can also be scrolled with the scroll wheel of a mouse. Unlike + in previous versions of Windows, both Flip and Flip 3D allow users to switch to the desktop itself. + in previous versions of Windows arranges open windows in the
Z-order. In Windows Vista, when Windows Aero is enabled and there are multiple windows open, only the first several windows are arranged in the Z-order while the remaining are listed in
alphabetical order to make it easier to switch to the desired window. Taskbar buttons in Windows Vista when Windows Aero is enabled also display a dynamic thumbnail of each window when the user hovers over them with the mouse cursor; when a video in an open window is playing, for example, the thumbnail on the taskbar will display the live video. •
Add to Quick Launch is a new context menu command for application shortcuts. • Adornments now appear in the Shell for photos and videos; photos have
instant camera paper borders and videos have film
reels. • An error message ("The specified device name is invalid") now appears when the user attempts to use a
reserved name for a folder or file. • Application shortcuts have Shell overlay icons to indicate the default application that is assigned to open them. •
AutoPlay supports
Blu-ray,
HD DVD,
Super Video CD, and
Video CD, and AutoPlay itself is now a per-device setting. • Column headers in the
Details icon view mode include new context menu options to
Size Column to Fit for a single selected column and
Size All Columns to Fit for all available columns, which automatically adjust column sizes to the length of the longest value; these options are in addition to the keyboard shortcut to automatically size all columns to fit ( and ) that was available in previous versions of Windows. •
Common Item Dialog supersedes the
Common File Dialog of previous Windows versions, and introduces new features such as access to item metadata, the ability to search for items, and + to select all of a filename. •
Computer (formerly
My Computer) displays a Windows logo on the icon of the volume containing the Windows installation to indicate that it belongs to the current Windows session. • Context menu commands to
Copy as path for selected files and
Open Command Prompt window here for selected folders are introduced; shortcuts also have a context menu option (
Open file location) to open the physical locations of their targets. •
Date and Time has been rewritten in Windows Vista and allows two additional clocks to be displayed on the clock icon of the taskbar; the time from other time zones can also be shown.
Daylight saving time details are on the calendar, and users can browse specific days, months, or years. •
Dialog boxes now display their status on the
taskbar; only
windows showed their status on the taskbar in previous versions of Windows. •
Disk Cleanup now includes handlers for cleaning setup logs, system error memory dumps, and
Windows thumbnail caches. • Folder relocation of files on Desktop on every user account is now possible. Same goes to other folders specific to every user account, such as Downloads, Music, Pictures, and Videos. •
Games (also known as the
Games Explorer) is a central location to access, manage, and view installed games and related settings. •
Hide File Names is a new context menu option for folders that predominantly include photos and videos. • Icons include a border target when Windows Aero, Windows Vista Basic, or Windows Vista Standard is enabled to make it easier to open the application or file; users previously had to click the icons themselves. • If a folder does not include a visible item, Windows Explorer informs the user that the folder is empty (
This folder is empty); this behavior is consistent with search operations in both previous versions of Windows (
Search is complete. There are no results to display) and in Windows Vista where Windows Explorer does not find items that match a query (
No items match your search). • Improvements to the Windows C++ common and standard
controls. • Information bars appear under the Command Bar in Windows Explorer to provide alerts and options for problem resolution when users perform operations such as browsing
My Network Places when not connected to a network (
This computer is not connected to a network. Click to connect...) or searching across locations that have not been indexed by Windows Search (
Searches might be slow in non-indexed locations. Click to add to Index...). •
JPEG files can be natively set as the desktop
wallpaper without using
Active Desktop (which is no longer supported); the
aspect ratio of JPEG files is now maintained properly when they are set as the desktop wallpaper. •
Rotate clockwise and
Rotate counterclockwise context menu options for selected images — previously available only in the
Filmstrip and
Thumbnails icon view modes in Windows XP — are available in all icon view modes in Windows Vista. • Shell overlay icons and sound events for the new
User Account Control feature are available. •
Task Dialogs and associated
APIs aim to address issues with older message boxes and intend to facilitate the creation of custom dialog boxes. •
Taskbar and Start Menu Properties now provides a single location to enable or disable the Clock, Network, Power, and Volume system icons in the notification area of the Windows taskbar; system icons now take precedence over application icons. • The address bar in Windows Explorer, and the Run dialog box now support +, which allows users to select and copy, cut, delete, or paste over all text in the text field. • The address bar includes new context menu options:
Copy Address, which copies the currently active node in the breadcrumb path as a pastable file system object;
Copy Address as Text, which copies the address itself as plain text; and
Edit Address, which displays the full address in the address bar and automatically selects the entire path. • The
Arrange Icons By context menu option in Windows XP and earlier releases of Windows has been replaced by individual context menu options to
Group By,
Sort By, and
Stack By. Within each of these context menus, users can now change whether items are grouped (or sorted or stacked) in ascending or descending directions; a checkbox now appears next to the name of the property by which items have been grouped or sorted. If a property by which users want to manage items is unavailable in one of these context menus, there is a new
More... option that adds properties to both the list that appears and to the column headers in the Shell. The previous
Arrange Icons By only included a
Show Icons in Groups option with no way to change the group order (or add properties by which to group) from the context menu. • The
Compatibility tab in Windows Explorer includes new options to
Disable desktop composition,
Disable display scaling on high DPI settings, and
Run this program as an administrator. There are new options to run programs in compatibility mode for either
Windows XP (Service Pack 2) or
Windows Server 2003 (Service Pack 1). • The Navigation Pane in Windows Explorer will now automatically scroll horizontally to display the name of a folder when the user expands a node in the folder tree; users do not have to scroll. • The
Previous Versions Property Sheet Shell extension can restore all previous versions of a file by utilizing
Shadow Copy, a storage backup technology introduced in
Windows Server 2003. previously, in Windows XP the tab was disabled if simple file sharing (
Use simple file sharing (Recommended)) was enabled. • The
Summary tab and the
Version tab of Windows XP have been combined into a single
Details tab; the new tab allows editing the same metadata as the Details Pane if a Property Handler for the selected file type is installed. A new
Remove Properties and Personal Information option can remove metadata from a selected item(s). • The template for shortcuts has changed for the first time since Windows 95. New shortcuts now first include the filename with a shortcut designation appended to the name (
Filename - Shortcut) instead of the shortcut designation taking precedence over the filename (
Shortcut to Filename); the new template enables better file sorting and supports localization efforts. • The
Tile Horizontally and
Tile Vertically context menu options introduced in Windows 95 for buttons on the taskbar belonging to open windows have been renamed as
Show Windows Stacked and
Show Windows Side by Side, respectively, in Windows Vista. • There is a context menu option to exit Windows Explorer (
Exit Windows Explorer) when holding and and clicking on the Start menu with the secondary mouse button; in Windows XP, the user had to open the Start menu, select
Turn Off Computer (or
Shutdown if using the classic Start menu), and click the
Cancel button on the
Turn off computer dialog while pressing and holding ++. • Tooltips now appear for all drag and drop file operations. In one example, when selecting a file and dragging it to another volume, a tooltip under the mouse cursor informs that dropping this file on the target volume will create a copy of this file. In another example, when selecting and dragging multiple files, the number of files appears under the mouse cursor to provide numerical feedback indicating the number of files on which the user will be performing file operations. • When attempting to delete a file, the
Delete File dialog box now displays a thumbnail representing the file to be deleted, as well as the metadata of the file; in previous versions of Windows only the filename was displayed in this dialog box. • When renaming a file with the key or with the
Rename context menu option while file extensions are visible, only the filename is selected, which prevents users from accidentally changing the file extension or from having to manually select only the filename. • When searching for drivers with
Device Manager it is possible to specify that subfolders of a selected location should be searched. • When the taskbar is resized, it is now possible to open the Start menu by clicking
under the Start button; as per
Fitts's law this allows users to continue to open the Start menu by clicking the farthest corner of the taskbar (as though the Start button is still there) regardless of how large the taskbar is. == New and upgraded applications ==