The road to recovery

Posted on 19 Sep 2007 at 16:49

Will Vista's service pack put It back on track? find out what you can expect from future Windows versions.

It may not be quite as tight-lipped as Apple, but Microsoft doesn't exactly shout from the rafters when it comes to the future of its flagship product. Companies will argue that discussing future products isn't just bad for business, but also raises customer expectations unrealistically - something that certainly happened during the Vista development process. In that case, features that were initially touted as key components - most infamously WinFS - were either dropped or radically changed.

And that seems to have sparked a clampdown on the release of information from Redmond. So, at this stage, we know relatively little about what's coming in the future. Even Microsoft's infamous codenames haven't managed to leak out with much clarity. In the case of Vista, it's widely believed that there are two significant releases around the corner: Service Pack 1 and Fiji - a major update to the Vista version of Windows Media Center.

Service Pack 1

Following the usual pattern of Windows releases, SP1 will contain a compendium of post-release patches, but it will also make major changes to the operating system. One of the biggest is an entirely new kernel, which will come from Windows Server 2008. Responsible for the basic I/O of the OS, the principal reason for this is thought to be security, with new APIs introduced for the benefit of more tightly integrated third-party security software.

Following Google's complaints, SP1 is likely to see a facility to change the default Windows Instant Search to another - such as Google Desktop. It's believed that the implementation of this may have delayed the first beta builds of SP1, which were originally expected earlier this summer.

Other slated changes include improvements to the integrated Disk Defragmenter - a feature that's notably hidden away in Vista - as well as some refinements to Group Policy tools; potentially attractive to those who'll be overseeing the rollout of Vista in a corporate environment.

No firm commitment has been made for a release date, but we're told it's "currently being worked on very hard". The likelihood is that it will be released concurrently with Windows Server 2008, originally due in November, but recently shifted to February 2008.

Welcome to Fiji

From somewhat humble beginnings, Windows Media Center has become one of the most accomplished of the bundled Windows apps. But it's also a complex piece of code, which, despite the major improvements that came in Vista, is clearly in need of a touch-up. Codename Fiji isn't just that, though - it could be thought of as the version of Media Center that would have been included in Vista had there been time to finish it.

As such, we'd expect the highly inconsistent menus to be tidied up, as well as some of the more obvious bugs - system folders showing up in your media library, for example. Beyond that, there are several key areas (such as the US-only CableCARD, DirectTV, European satellite broadcasting and high-definition media) that are still either poorly supported or not all. With inroads needed in all these to remain competitive with increasingly sophisticated set-top boxes and alternatives such as Sky+, Fiji will need to be a major release.

An open invite was sent out in March for the next beta version of Windows Media Center, with applicants to be informed by 31 May of their inclusion. But the program was still listed as "pending" on the Microsoft Connect site at the time of going to press and the company is making no comment. If Fiji is as complicated as is suspected, it will mean a beta of several months, and we wouldn't expect to see final code until as late as the second half of 2008.