Development of Windows Vista Development of Windows Vista Development of Windows Vista occurred over the span of five and a half years, starting in earnest in May 2001, prior to the release of Microsoft's Windows XP operating system, and continuing until November 2006. Microsoft originally expected to ship the new version sometime late in 2003 as a minor step between Windows XP (codenamed "Whistler") and Windows 7 (codenamed "Blackcomb" and "Vienna"). Vista's original codename, "Longhorn", was an allusion to this plan: While Whistler and Blackcomb are large ski resorts in British Columbia, Longhorn is the name of a bar between the two mountains that
Features new to Windows Vista users—was a significant source of power transition failures in previous versions of Windows and often resulted in decreased battery life, overheated systems, potential data loss, and an eventual user distrust of power-saving capabilities. During the development of Windows Vista, Microsoft indicated that it would allow the sleep process to be vetoed in the operating system, but subsequent investigations by the company revealed that this capability was frequently abused by application developers. However, administrators can still enable veto functionality through group policy. Windows Vista introduces a new Hybrid Sleep power-saving mode that combines hibernation and sleep mode functionality. When active, Hybrid