eWEEK Labs Walk-Through: Vista Build 5472

This Be Secure screen was the first thing we saw upon booting into Vista 5472.

As with the Be Secure screen, other setup screens pointed to Vistas home media center functionality.

We installed the Trend Micro Antivirus beta that Vista pointed us to, but the Security Center couldnt seem to tell that wed updated our signatures.

Once wed moved past the security banner, this was the first we spied of our upgraded Vista desktop.

We began installing the plug-in for Microsoft/MTVs Urge music service before losing interest.

This was the first wed seen of Vistas very nice-looking Sharing and Discovery setup interface–it reminds us of the network services controls on Mac OS X.

Another yet-unfinished corner of Vista points to cross-marketing opportunities to come.

The classic-style menu was a vestige from our upgraded Windows XP box, on which wed opted for the Windows 2000-era menu format.

We had to save our sidebar gadget to disk before installing it, but the scribble gadget didnt turn out to be worth the download.

The same thing happened with the Trend Micro AV software we downloaded–we had to save it first to disk

Windows Defender didnt look like it had changed much in this build.

Same with Internet Explorer 7s phishing filter-it looked more or less the same as in earlier builds.

We liked the look of Vistas new desktop appearance tools, but the old interfaces still lurk for those who prefer them.

Heres that old-look tool interface–a screen grab we took with Vistas nifty, if starchily-named, Snipping Tool.

Although Vistas UAC seemed generally smoother, we were puzzled when Vista refused our attempt to change the name of a folder on our desktop.

We liked the look of Vistas taskbar-borne media controls.

We used Vistas handy Windows Features dialog to remove the telnet server we found installed by default on our machine.

Our Vista install disk came with a pointer to an upgrade-readiness tool from Microsoft.

One of our lab machines that was loaded with an earlier version of Vista didnt have enough left-over disk space for a new install.

As usual on Windows, the Security Center warned of our dangerously absent anti-virus software. Vista offered suggestions for an AV app, however.

We didnt need admin authorization to set up a VPN connection for ourselves.

We liked the look of this smart file-save dialog.

Vistas 3D Window Switcher is among the handier eye-candy elements on this system.

We did run into some beta-software wackiness.

Our test rig rated a 3.3 on Vistas Windows Experience Index.