Windows Vista Media Center

I have applied to Beta test, wait for it, Windows Vista Media Center! Yes, Microsoft, it would seem, want to release a Media Center-specific version of Vista, even though Vista Home Premium and Vista Ultimate already have it built-in. In my personal opinion, but stop me if I am wrong, is that Microsoft want to make some sort release of Windows Vista which is a superset of Home Premium with some features of Ultimate, but without the Business-related features that come as part of Vista Business. Another theory is that Microsoft may be releasing an updated version of Media Center that will feature either as an update or as part of Fiji, which is release of updates for Vista that Microsoft hope will include WinFS (Windows Future Storage) that has a feature called Virtual Folders, which in some way should enable quicker searching of data. Please don't take any of this that I'm saying as Gospel as I don't know Microsoft's future plans for Vista.

It's interesting to note however now that Microsoft has just released Windows Vista and that the wait begins for hardened XP users to make the switch, computer enthusiasts are tucking into the speculation of Windows codename "Vienna". Microsoft, once again, are saying that they are hoping to break the 12-year old mould of the Start Menu and Taskbar. Some are saying that Microsoft are hoping to use a "Pie Menu" which is a circular menu that is drawn around the mouse pointer. This reduces the effort needed to select menu options that are at the extremes of a menu. In my opinion this would also make it for disabled users who have limited movement to use computers, but there is the big problem on what to do with large menus. Microsoft eliminated the trademark huge menus in World and some other Office applications by replacing them with the new Ribbon but this still requires a lot of mouse movement. I eagerly await news of Vienna but at the same time, am slightly disappointed as I'm still trying to place my mitts on a shiny new box that has a dual-core processor and that exceeds the requires to run Vista by (hopefully) quite a way.