Windows Vista Premium editions of Windows 7. Windows Vista Windows Vista is an operating system that was produced by Microsoft for use on personal computers, including home and business desktops, laptops, tablet PCs and media center PCs. Development was completed on November 8, 2006, and over the following three months, it was released in stages to computer hardware and software manufacturers, business customers and retail channels. On January 30, 2007, it was released worldwide and was made available for purchase and download from the Windows Marketplace. The release of Windows Vista came more than five years after the introduction of its predecessor,
Management features new to Windows Vista applications as part of the operating system itself. The setup process for Windows Vista has been completely rewritten and is now image-based. Setup is now based on Windows Preinstallation Environment (WinPE) version 2.0, which, amongst other features, runs the entire setup process in a graphical environment, as opposed to the text-based environments of previous versions. Visually, the user interface resembles Windows Vista itself, using ClearType fonts and the Aero visual style, and enabling the use of a mouse. Prior to copying the setup image, users can graphically resize partitions. Support for loading third-party disk drivers has improved. Whereas Windows XP