There's been good and bad press about Vista and some users find the radical changes annoying and difficult. However, there are a lot of good things too, and it's such a powerful tool with great graphics and many flashy new possibilities you can't help but learn to love it. Spending time getting everything just the way you want it when you first start using Vista it is well worth every well-planned minute.

We'll start with the first view you get of Vista when the operating system loads - the GUI or Graphical User Interface. The view may vary from the image shown but this is the 'official' Vista Desktop background. On the Windows Vista desktop, to help you access and interact with your programs, files, and folders, you'll see at the bottom of the screen the Start menu and the taskbar.

The screen has the usual shortcuts on the left-hand side and more can be added to link to programs or your favourite folders. A Windows Sidebar can also be added on the right, with live icons, called gadgets, linked to the Internet. These gadgets can tell you anything from the latest weather report to whether the US exchange rate has dropped. Vista has a selection of additional gadget links which can be downloaded from the Microsoft Vista Gallery.

Windows Evolution

In the early 1970s Micro Instrumentation and Telemetry Systems (MITS) designed an electonics package for model rocket hobbyists. Two young Harvard graduates worked for them in the software division. They were William H. Gates III and Paul Allen .

MITS were close to going bankrupt when they developed the Altair 8800 - one of the first hobbyists microcomputer kits. There are two stories about the origins of the name. The first is that it was named after a real star in the solar system mentioned once in the tv show, Star Trek (Episode 34 - Amok Time  - on 16th September 1967). The second is that as the launch was a stellar event it should be named after a star and Altair was chosen (the 11th brightest star in the sky). You can decide which story you like best!

During this time, Bill Gates and Paul Allen were busy writing BASIC (Beginner's All-purpose Symbolic Instruction Code) for MITS and honing their skills. The code they wrote was very basic, for instance to print "Hello Sheila" the code would have looked like this:

READY

10 PRINT "HELLO SHEILA"

20 GO TO 10

RUN

The two young men also wrote Disk Operating Systems and other software for the Altair but in 1975 decided to leave MITS and set up their own company. They chose to call this Micro-soft.

Three years later, IBM chose Microsoft to write the operating system for their personal computer.  This was called the Microsoft Disk Operating System or MS DOS for short.  It enabled the system to carry out many tasks including processing data, controlling and allocating computer storage and memory, prioritizing system requests, etc. IBM allowed Microsoft to license the operating system to other companies and by 1984, 200 personal computers had MS-DOS operating systems.

Bill Gates wanted to call the system Interface Manager, but his Marketing executive, Rowland Harson, persuaded him that Windows would be a better name. In 1983, to lauch Windows, Microsoft sent out a press kit which included a squeegee and a washcloth (to clean glass windows!) accompany the Windows package. This was a novelty way to help cement the Windows name in journalists' memories.

On November 20, 1985 Microsoft released Windows 1.0, an ergonomic operating system with a graphical user interface (GUI). Two weeks later, the first Service Pack or Fix was released to sort out initial bugs in the system. The tradition for this continues today when new versions are released.

With 1.0 you could use a mouse to point and click rather than rely on the keyboard.  You could also issue commands by clicking on small pictures – now called icons – rather than use complicated dot commands to format text. This meant that even the user with no previous experience could understand some of the shortcuts and were able to access programs with relative confidence.  Colours were fairly basic with no real wow! factor.

In 1990, Windows 3.0 was released and with greatly improved graphics encapsulating 16 colours, the desktop was really becoming ergonomically focused. The user was offered Program, File and Print Managers.

On August 24, 1995, Windows 95 was released and this user-friendly system made a massive impact on the personal computer market.  People were queuing up to buy it and for many, purchased their very first computer. The interface looked good, the system appeared easy to use, and suddenly computer technology had become a possibility for home use as well as in the office. Shortcut icons helped accessibility and Bill Gates' name was big news.

Several versions have followed: Windows 95, Windows 98. Windows 2000, Windows ME, Windows NT (New Technology), Windows 2003, Windows XP … and now a radical change with Windows Vista.  Each new version is geared towards making the user's life easier and with competition around every corner Bill Gates still has the desire to keep ahead of the game.

Extra bit

For their GUI Microsoft used what is now known as a bitmap display. The newly-invented term was derived from a play on words - map of bits. In computer terms it is a way to organise memory or image files in order to store digital images or pictures.

One bit equals one pixel - and one pixel is a picture element, evolving again into slang, ie, pix for picture = pix element = pixel. Get it?

The pixel itself is a single element in a picture - not really a dot or a square, but if you enlarge an image you can see it's made up of samples. In computer gargon a sample is just a value or set of values at a point in time or space. We're now getting into virtual folders and later we will discuss these and how Vista utilises space and time to its own advantage. But back in the days when this was all new, Star Trek was an influence on a lot of new technology, and who's to say that Bill Gates didn't get some of his ideas from it!

The GUI has really moved on now and you're also likely to hear the term PixMap which, with the above information under your belt, you can easily see how this name has evolved.