Datasheet

WHAT’S NEW IN WINDOWS VISTA?

People Near Me provides an extremely easy method of creating a collaboration environment

with other people on your local network. All you do is perform a simple setup and then either invite

other people to join you or join other collaborations as you receive invitations. One of the principal

collaboration tools associated with People Near Me is Windows Meeting Space. Chapter 20 dis-

cusses People Near Me and other kinds of collaboration using Windows Collaboration.

Identity Protection with CardSpace

Your identity is an important part of who you are. However, your identity changes by context. For

example, when you go into work, your identity is based on your employee number, and when you

go into the bank, it’s based on your account number. Even though you don’t change your identity,

the way people view you does based on the circumstances. Up until now, managing all of those dif-

ferent identities was difficult on the Internet. Many people ended up maintaining extensive text

files with critical identification information just so they could remember who they are in a partic-

ular context. CardSpace provides a standards-based method of managing identity based on con-

nection and application context. It’s part of the .NET Framework 3.0, which comes as part of Vista

(Microsoft also plans to release the .NET Framework 3.0 for Windows XP and Windows Server

2003). You can discover more about this technology in Chapter 21.

File Protection with Code Integrity and BitLocker

Microsoft is making a significant effort to improve the protection of essential files on your system.

The Code Integrity feature is automatic. It looks for unsigned files that act as part of the Vista ker-

nel, the part of Vista that provides operating system services. By checking these files for problems

every time you start your machine, Vista reduces the risk that you’ll encounter nasty viruses and

rootkits. Many hacker exploits depend on attacking the kernel in some way, so this protection is

important. This feature is absolute on 64-bit systems, even for drivers. Vista will prompt adminis-

trators for 32-bit systems for permission to install unsigned drivers.

BitLocker takes protection a step further by encrypting the entire hard drive. No one can read

the hard drive unless they have the required key. It doesn’t even help to move the drive to

another machine because the data remains unreadable. Consequently, this particular feature

significantly reduces the risk of someone reading sensitive information from a stolen laptop or

obtaining access to your desktop machine when you’re not present. Vista supports this feature

through a special chip called the Trusted Platform Module (TPM). As an alternative, you can

also add BitLocker support to your system using a USB flash drive. You can read more about this

feature in Chapter 21.

Better Performance with SuperFetch, ReadyBoost, and ReadyDrive

Vista provides a number of new ways to enhance performance, which means speed in this case.

Even though Vista uses significantly more memory and requires more hardware than previous

versions of Windows, it also has the potential to perform tasks significantly faster due to three

new services.

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SuperFetch improves performance over time by analyzing your use of memory and opti-

mizing the memory configuration. In short, you get more out of the memory your system

is using.

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ReadyBoost makes your system more responsive by looking for flash memory devices

and using any available memory to support system needs. Because the flash memory

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