Microsoft has rolled out Windows Vista Beta 2, which has a ton of improvements over the past builds and is just as feature complete, was released this past weekend to the geekly masses like myself who have been waiting on edge for Vista to go Beta 2. What does it mean? Well, first and foremost, we’re that much closer to Vista’s official release, and now that the OS is actually feature complete and for the most part finished, the beta program now is for feedback on bugfixes and integration of applications and user experience and whatnot now than it was before. It’s mostly finished, and you can expect only minor changes between Beta 2 and the actual shipping version when it finally rolls out.
Admittedly it doesn’t look horribly different from previous feature complete builds, but I can tell that the bugfixes and corrections to the code are under the hood, and the operating system is much snappier and more responsive than it used to be. Either way, interesitng tidbits like transparancy for the sidebar and the “widgets” that come with it (think Dashboard on the PC, like Yahoo! Widgets or Google Gadgets) shown above, make the OS something to look forward to from a geeky user-interface perspective, but how does it really function, and what does it look like? Well, ExteremeTech and PC World are here to give you their hands-on opinions of the new beta. First those, and then the screenshots of the new build.
[ Extremetech :: Inside Windows Vista ]