Microsoft has finally detailed about the widely discussed (read as criticised) by gamers and PC users alike. It will support Windows Vista and DirectX 10 and 10.1 cards. On the hardware front, Microsoft assures that it won’t be too hard compared to the wide gap between DirectX10 and DX 9.0c. So, as far as that is concerned, lets give Microsoft a chance.

So whats new? A new compute shader technology that makes your GPU perform and make things look rich. A multi core thread processing that will make games to take proper advantage of the multiple cores that computers have today. And ’support for tessellation’ which means that the in-game models will look more realistic and precise and close up.

It took a little time for people to notice that you could boot Windows XP from a USB memory drive. But hopefully this won’t. You can now install Windows Vista from a bootable USB memory. All you need is a 4GB USB flash drive and of course, a computer that can stand its demands.

Windows Vista hasn’t been received quite well among the tech communities all over the world and even OEM partners for Microsoft have raised there hands against pre-loading Vista instead of the reliable Windows XP. Addressing all these concerns Microsoft have launched the much waited Vista Service Pack 1 few months back. As a service pack should do it changes lot of internal stuffs and thus making the OS more stable.

Technet and MSDN subscribers are the only ones that are able to download the newly integrated Windows Vista With Service Pack 1 which really saves time if you are stuck with installing Service Pack 1 manually.

It’s simply weired that in Windows Vista won’t let you uninstall Windows Defender which is kinda ultimate useless application of all time. :D Strangely it does allow uninstalling in Windows XP.

Now that Windows Vista installs Windows Defender by default, many people are looking for ways to disable, uninstall or remove it from system so that they could install any other anti-spyware programs. Besides using some precious cpu and memory resources Windows Defender as I already told you is a lameware, also because if you use something like Kaspersky Internet Security its almost impossible for spywares to get inside.

 Most of us have came across Windows Vista, there are many hidden features that are really great and interesting.

Nowadays a standard digital camera supports resolutions upto 7 to 8 megapixels. Recently I purchased one digital cam, as an avid shutterbug I love taking photos here and there. Most of the photos are related to nature, life, gadgets etc and my online buddies love watching them :). As you would know broadband in India sucks, thats why have to resize my images before uploading.

Each time after Windows XP boots up to Welcome Screen or Logon Screen for user to log on to Windows desktop, you’ll find a message under you user id that you have certain number of unread mail messages. This problem is only associated with users who starts to use Microsoft’s related email clients or services, such as Microsoft Outlook and Windows Live Hotmail.

It’s pretty useless and something annoying to display the number, besides its a little too un-private as it also display user’s email address together. Its quite easy way to fix it.

Finally after some time and customer feedback. Microsoft’s long waited Windows Vista Service Pack 1 is finally free for you to download from Windows Update or Microsoft Download Center. According to Microsoft SP1 will address issues related to performance and reliability. Particular gaming compatibility and networking related issues seem to have been fixed.

Download sizes are quite hefty, might take some time for the download to complete (i completed in 15minutes): Another trick is to download the SP1 update via Windows Update which is incredibly small at 65MB.

• Vista SP1 32-bit download (434.5MB)