Talk:Features new to Windows Vista/Archive 2

Split up parts?

Could it be possible to move parts of the article to separate pages, as to reduce the size of the page? Media features, Security Features, Bundled Apps, and UI Features should have there own pages! :P

Modem support?

I notice in the article that some of the removed connectivity stuff is directly related to dial-up. Has dial-up gone out the window? If so, the article should say so explicitly. --Scott McNay 04:40, 13 January 2007 (UTC)

reads like an ad for MS

Not all functions are included in every version of Vista. Publishing stipped down versions (e.g. excluding Aero) gives MS the possibility to "allow" any user to pay dircectly to MS if they miss a feature in ther castrated windows. The really new features are mostly harmful for the end-user. DRM allows the media industry full control over ther customers and new backdoors will make it easy for security agencies to infiltrate systems. Good that the MS-guys controlling the vista articles eliminate any free speech. Welcome to 1984.--87.165.230.16 14:58, 27 January 2007 (UTC)

Wow, what a load of bs!

This article is a list of new features in Windows Vista. It is for neutral and comprehensive list of new features - not for critisism (for that you have Windows Vista article).

As for DRM, move on - it was already refuted by many experts. DRM in Vista is pretty much the same as in XP. Futurix 18:10, 27 January 2007 (UTC)

I do agree it reads like an ad for MS, and doesn't look very neutral. For instance this:

> "Windows Vista includes the latest version of Internet Explorer"

Obviously, you would expect it to be the latest version and not something from five years ago. What about this:

> "...available in all versions of Windows Vista, except Starter and Home Basic editions, to enable the new..."

Saying "all versions except..." is somehow like saying a glass is full except for the top half. The article is also peppered with positive-sounding words like "enhance", "achieve", "enable" which sound to me like marketing language. And I think it contains way to many details which are unsignificant, like "Paint features updated toolbar icons and default color palette", and "The battery icon in the notification area has been improved to let the user more easily select a Power plan". All this doesn't really need to be on Wikipedia, I think... But well, that's not the first time there's a POV article on wikipedia ^^ Ratfox 17:52, 9 March 2007 (UTC)

WP:SOFIXIT. You've got an edit button. Improve the article instead of complaining about it. Provide decent rationales in your edit summaries and the changes will almost assuredly stick. By the way, Internet Explorer 7 is literally the latest version... five years late. ;-) -/- Warren 19:05, 9 March 2007 (UTC)

I just made a few changes in this sense. I unfortunately forgot to log in before (62.167.57.43), this was not meant to be anonymous edits. Ratfox 21:52, 11 March 2007 (UTC)

My changes and those of a few others were reverted somewhat carelessly by somebody... I insist that the new toolbar icons are not relevant! ^^ Also, if you revert, you probably shouldn't revert 10 revisions of 4 different people indiscrimately. Ratfox 14:13, 15 March 2007 (UTC)

What about backwards compatibility with XP software?

Maybe I am missing something, but I didn't see a section in this article on whether or not MS Vista is backwards compatible with running XP software. I have a number of programs such as Corel WordPerfect, (WordPerfect Office 2002) and misc. programs from Canon, Broderbund, National Geographic 100 Years on CD-ROM, and Judaica Multimedia's Encyclopaedia Judaica CD-ROM. How can I find out if this software will run properly on Vista? The issue of backwards compatibility with recent legacy software (last 5 years or so) should be an important part of this article. Any help would be greatly appreciated. RK 21:06, 29 January 2007 (UTC)

AFAIK, it depends on the software in question. Vista x64 doesn't run 16-bit programs, which is no great loss. UAC breaks some (poorly-coded) programs and drivers. However, Vista has an application compatibility menu to try to trick apps into working. A google search on "vista application compatibility" yields this article, which seems pretty spot-on: [1] —Disavian (^talk/_contribs) 22:00, 29 January 2007 (UTC)

Application compatibility is completely out of scope of this article - it is only about new features of Vista. Futurix 22:10, 29 January 2007 (UTC)

Backronym

There seems to be a dispute over whether Aero is an acronym or a backronym. To me, it seems unlikely that Aero is a genuine acronym. I mean, who names a piece of software Authentic, Energetic, Reflective, and Open and then after the fact thinks "oh wow, look, it spells aero"?

It is more likely that Microsoft came up with the name 'Aero' first (probably to spoof Mac OS X's 'Aqua' interface) and then invented Authentic, Energetic, Reflective, and Open retrospectively to fit.

On the other hand, Microsoft have never stated this was the case -- and are never likely to, even if its true. Therefore, in line with the main article on Aero, I've edited the article to read "an acronym (or backronym)", which covers both possibilities. 80.93.170.99 16:16, 30 January 2007 (UTC)

Announced but removed features?

Were there not several Vista features, which MS in the end removed, because of time constraints? Could someone who knows them add a list of them to one of the Vista articles? Mlewan 05:21, 31 January 2007 (UTC)

Just a reminder - this shouldn't be in the current article, because it is about new Vista features only. Futurix 10:46, 31 January 2007 (UTC)

GA Article

This article is now a good article. Congratulations to all who contributed to this article! Keep working to get this article to Featured Article status! Everything appears to be great for Good Article status. Work on the length to help this reach Featured Article status. Funpika 19:34, 4 February 2007 (UTC)

Good Article Review

This article is now up at WP:GA/R.

A couple of notes for reviewers:

• Yes, this article is quite large - but this is because it is comprehensive. It is written in summary style, which is an occasional exception from WP:SIZE. Besides, large chunks of text where already moved to other articles.
• Accusation of breaching WP:SOAP is stupid - this article is neutral and contains both good and bad changes in Vista.

Futurix 17:42, 7 February 2007 (UTC)

Delisted

GA Delist: See comments here. Further, it fails requirements of WP:WIAGA Nja247 Nicholas 20:53, 7 February 2007 (UTC)

The comments are now archived in GA/R archive 14. Homestarmy 18:06, 8 February 2007 (UTC)

...Which is here: Wikipedia:Good article review/Archive 14#Features new to Windows Vista —Disavian (^talk/_contribs) 19:35, 12 March 2007 (UTC)

Too Long

I believe this article is too long and could use some good editing and summarisation in many spots. As the review of this article stated (see above) others too, believe it's a tad too long. I copied/pasted it into Word, removed all the refs and such and it was well over 16,000 words (24,000+ with them). Generally, and as cited by wikipedia's guidelines on article length, articles exceeding 6,000-10,000 words become cumbersome to readers and many lose attention span after about 10 printed pages worth of material. This page was 65 pages in word before I removed refs, etc. Even with them, it was well over 40 pages.

So I guess we need a plan of action on how to summarise the article as best as possible without detracting too much from its content. Further, complicated matters may be broken off into seperate articles of their own. Further the exception is just that, an exception for highly complex subjects. I do not believe Vista is of such a complexity that it cannot be summarised. What do you all think aside from the one person who has already been quite clear they think everything is just peachy with this bloated article? Nja247 Nicholas 20:03, 7 February 2007 (UTC)

My lord yes. I tried reading this thing and got bored a 1/4 of the way through. Many aspects could be covered in sub-articles, and there's a lot of space to summarize. Reading this talk page, I seen three or four other people make reference to its size, with one person defending its size. So with myself included, there's six posts saying something needs to be done, and one against. The thing is, it's a good article, however its mere size will make most people except the most avid Vista fans not want to read it. Look at the Tiger OS X article, or even the Windows XP articles: they're MUCH shorter and more condensed and fulfill the same goal of this very long article! Just my $.02 82.45.240.51 20:26, 7 February 2007 (UTC)

Believe what you will, but we're talking about an operating system that was under development for about as long as World War II, with many thousands of people working on it full-time. Vista isn't some point-release or service pack, and it's certainly much larger in the scope of change than what came with Windows XP or even Windows 2000. If Wikipedia is going to take a stab at covering every noteworthy aspect (and why wouldn't it?), it necessitates a lot of space. The information presented here is already briefly summarised from the sources that are used, and a lot of information is still missing.

It may not be obvious, but there are already quite a number of sub-pages off of this page already, that discuss Vista's new features in varying degrees of length. Protected Video Path, User Account Control, ReadyBoost, BitLocker Drive Encryption, Windows Aero, and so on and so forth.

If you have something against long pages, go tag Contract bridge glossary, Frizzell County Championship Division Two in 2005, David I of Scotland, and Genealogy of the Russian Imperial Family, all of which are significantly longer than this article. People who aren't interested in meticulous detail can stick to Windows Vista, which is a very brief summation of what's in this article. Sometimes Wikipedia has pages that are really just reference material -- this is one of them. -/- Warren 21:12, 7 February 2007 (UTC)

Good discussion, but regarding your comment about wikipedia and this being just a reference page -- when this article went under review for good article status, there were 6 different reviewers in one-day that stated this article was either too long or written like an advertisement (or both). This is not the type of stuff wikipedia is for. I personally don't see this article as written like an advertisement. However, those comments are valid if the people making the accusations can back it up with some examples, which I have not seen thus far.

I guess if we get five other people that agree with you that it's not too long, then the issue will be split 50/50. Either way I think we could all agree to attempt to work on summarising information that is not pertinent. I could go through and easily eliminate about 20% of the filler in this article. I'm waiting for a consensus before I start hacking away, as I don't won't it to be immediately reversed. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Nja247 (talk • contribs) 00:40, 8 February 2007 (UTC).

It is long, but not too long. As far as consensus goes, I don't really see how 6 bypassers' opinion can be called consensus, when people who actually edit the article do not agree. Futurix 11:15, 8 February 2007 (UTC)

If you don't mind, I will review and cut parts of the article in the next 12 to 14 hours. There is definitely a lot of junk that can be removed without hurting the article quality itself. I'd very appreciate if there will be no other shortening during that time as this may become very confusing to maintain. Futurix 11:22, 8 February 2007 (UTC)

Just because you edit the article and think it's okay, does not invalidate the comments and views of others. There are no "bypassers" on Wikipedia; it's a community effort. All comments are valid. I agree if someone makes a statement and doesn't support it, then it should be disregarded, but when someone actually believes there is an issue and is willing to work to fix the perceived issue, then that comment is valid and needs addressed, especially by the people that are active in that particular article. Why wouldn't you want what you consider to be "your article" the best? It's far from it at this point, just look at the comments on it's submission for a 'good article'. However this article can be made better, but this will not happen if one or two users try to control the show. Again, while you may have worked hard on the article and should be commended for it, as overall it's a good article, you do not 'own it'. This must be resolved in a better than that it's been handled thus far. Users can't just remove comment tags that they don't agree with, unless it's spam, un-validated (without discussion). I'm willing to work on it, are you? Cheers. Nja247 (talk • contribs) 11:45, 8 February 2007 (UTC)

Did you bother to read my second comment - I'm already working on shortening this article. My prior editing on this article was only to remove blatant "M$ sucks" or "Apple had it before" POV. Futurix 11:56, 8 February 2007 (UTC)

The article size is fine way it is. Adding 'long' modifier is like a permanent stamp on a this article. Given the amount of features added, even after culling this article into just a bunch of links (which in my opnion would also render it useless) the size will be big. Searpl

Edit war?

Am I in my first one? That is really sad. Per Help:Reverting:

When to revert

Do's

• Reverting is a decision which should be taken seriously.
• Reverting is used primarily for fighting vandalism', or anything very similar to the effects of vandalism.
• If you are not sure whether a revert is appropriate, discuss it first rather than immediately reverting or deleting it.
• If you feel the edit is unsatisfactory, improve it rather than simply reverting or deleting it.

Dont's

• Do not simply revert changes that are made as part of a dispute. Be respectful to other editors, their contributions and their points of view.
• Do not revert good faith edits. In other words, try to consider the editor "on the other end." If what one is attempting is a positive contribution to Wikipedia, a revert of those contributions is inappropriate unless, and only unless, you as an editor possess firm, substantive, and objective proof to the contrary. Mere disagreement is not such proof. See alsoWikipedia:Assume_good_faith.
• Generally there are misconceptions that problematic sections of an article or recent changes are the reasons for reverting or deletion. If they contain valid information, these texts should simply be edited and improved accordingly. Reverting is not a decision which should be taken lightly.
• There's sometimes trouble determining whether some claim is true or useful, particularly when there are few people "on board" who are knowledgeable about the topic. In such a case, it's a good idea to raise objections on a talk page; if one has some reason to believe that the author of what appears to be biased material will not be induced to change it, editors have sometimes taken the step of transferring the text in question to the talk page itself, thus not deleting it entirely. This action should be taken more or less as a last resort, never as a way of punishing people who have written something biased. See also Wikipedia:Neutral point of view/FAQ
• Do not revert changes simply because someone makes an edit you consider problematic, biased, or inaccurate. Improve the edit, rather than reverting it.

I have a genuine belief the article is too long. So did these people. I am willing to spend time to assist in removing excess filler in this article. I truly believe it can be shortened without loss of content and quality.Nja247 (talk • contribs) 00:49, 9 February 2007 (UTC)

I agree with Nja247. Actually, I'm glad he's pressing this because any criticism about this article at all has been disregarded by people that seem to believe they "own" the article. Yes, you may have worked hard on the article, but you should welcome criticism to make it better. The tag doesn't hurt the article like someone mentioned. A majority of wiki articles have some type of maintenance tag on them, such as for clean-up, citations needed, etc. This one is because the damn article is the longest thing ever. It could be published as a instructional manual.

It is not the longest, not even close. Futurix 02:09, 9 February 2007 (UTC)

I highly recommend EVERYONE here read WP:OWN, WP:CIV, WP:AGF, Help:Revert.82.45.240.51 01:31, 9 February 2007 (UTC)

I have shortened article by 7kb today (mostly by moving some new features to individual software pages). I plan to continue tomorrow, if you don't mind.

BTW, "Windows XP features excluded" I think could be split into it's own article.

Futurix 02:09, 9 February 2007 (UTC)

I reverted most of your changes. Sorry. Remember that this article serves as the WP:SUMMARY-style target for the "new features" section of the Windows Vista article itself. Given that these applications are collectively an extremely visible part of what is new in Vista, it's important that they are expanded on here, while also acting as a brief summation of the full articles beyond. There are other areas which can be partitioned out into separate articles, e.g. Networking features new to Windows Vista, Management features new to Windows Vista, and so on. That's a better place to start than removing piles of information from the encyclopedia altogether simply because the article is long. -/- Warren 06:23, 9 February 2007 (UTC)

I did not remove information from Wikipedia, I moved it to different articles (the ones that were linked from the application names). In fact I oppose trimming of this article myself, but what can I do against 6 "experts" who "reviewed" this article and had "consensous" (sic!) that it should be shortened?

Not 'six', One guy actually voted twice.Searspl

Of course I'm pretty sure that they did not even bother to read the article, and acted entirely on the size... Futurix 11:08, 9 February 2007 (UTC)

I suspect this article was the victim of blatant fanboyism - look up the history of the reviewers. Size is just an excuse to supress this article. Searspl

I think we need to have a plan of attack for this article, because this article is just too long and varied to have a compromise without a clear "vision", so to speak. I agree that this article is too long, especially for dialup which I am on (even though I am on 512Kb usually). However I also agree with Warrens, that just cutting info seems a bit desperate(if that makes sense). When the content from the main Windows Vista article was copied here and the remainder was summarised, it really helped improve the main article (I still have some quality concerns though). This article has grown "out of control" with no coherency. It really needs a plan to see it become a great article. Harryboyles 06:49, 9 February 2007 (UTC)

Plan of attack? Are you playing some game here? Yes, this article is long - and there seems to be quite a number of people, who think that this is O.K.

I think that some parts could be rewritten with more clarity, but generally the article is fine. Futurix 11:11, 9 February 2007 (UTC)

Am I playing a game? I don't know myself :) Was I out of my mind when I wrote that. Probably. Alright, I'll start again. What I was trying to get at without getting over my head is that it is definitely too long. On my speed-reduced "broadband" connection (a.k.a 28.8 kb), it only seems to load half the article. From my perspective, the writing and section organisation starts alright, however near the end it feels less coherent and esp. with the Windows XP excluded part, it feels like a trivia section. By "plan of attack", what I was really thinking was a possible "partitioning out into separate articles" scheme. Certainly not a full article rewrite. Harryboyles 11:45, 9 February 2007 (UTC)

I agree with Harryboyles, that a plan of attack needs to be worked out. I am willing to help in any capacity to improve the article. Also I think (believe it or not, the intro needs expanded). Also, I'd forget about the conspiracy theories that this is all a malicious attack by fan-boy'ism. I don't think it's true, and anyhow it doesn't resolve the inherent issue. Further, I actually came to this article wanting to read it as I like Vista and was interested in it and wanted to read about its new features. However, I was overwhelmed by the amount of content stuck onto one page. I actually had to break up reading the entire article into different sessions as it was just too long for general readability. So yes, I've read it. Also I work with the good article review team, and they work very hard to go a good job and demeaning their work is not cool at all. They volunteer their time to make Wikipedia better, just as you, and they don't need to get slack for that!

So anyway, I felt it was too long. I checked policy out and figured the page could use the "too long" tag. Further I came here to chat with the active editors to explain my POV and to offer assistance. I didn't post my tag and run off. That leads me to my final comment: one user keeps reverting my edit and has not once came here and commented on the issue I raised. I can understand that you may not agree with me, but have the common decency to explain your side and not smack me in the face by disregarding my input (and breaking Wiki etiquette). Again, I'm here to assist if needed and if things get cleared up we can get this article back to good article status.

Edit: To address one comment -- I don't think the article needs trimmed, though there are areas this could happen. I think many things could be re-structured and maybe broken off into other topic articles. Nja247 (talk • contribs) 19:28, 9 February 2007 (UTC)

I find your intentions are suspect. You voted twice in the Good Article Review while pretending to be two different reviewers. Plus your history reveals that your +ve contributions have been for a competing OS. Clearly there is a bias here and your intention seems to be supress content rather than make any useful contribution to this article. Searspl 19:50, 9 February 2007 (UTC)

Well, just because I edited the Mac OS X article once in the last week does not make this into a conspiracy. Actually, if you look at the edit, it was a minor error I found in the article. I use both OS X and Windows, and if you bothered to read my post above I only came to this article to learn more about Vista, not to hate on it. To better illustrate my point, there's at least 10 other Vista related articles on Wikipedia, if not more, and I have no complaints with them at all. In fact I contributed slightly to the main Vista article relating to the price of the OS in the UK. Lastly, I never used another name to do anything. Making such an accusation is ridiculous, among other things. It's all in my contributes, there's nothing to hide, no malicious intent. This type of attitude doesn't address the concerns raised, nor does it contribute to a remedy. Nja247 (talk • contribs) 20:10, 9 February 2007 (UTC)

Protection

As you may have noticed, the article is now protected. This is bad, and good. It's bad, because now new content and revision can't be done on the fly. This is good though because of that same reason; content and revision can be thought out well and co-ordinated to make a stellar article. The above suggestions by users such as Warren, HarryBoyle, Futurix and others can be planned out and done well. I did not wish to have the page protected, but one user didn't want to adhere to wiki rules regarding improper use of reverts, even after I warned him this would happen if it didn't stop. To top it off, this same user not once came here to say "hey, i don't agree with you". With that said I have no issues with unprotecting the page, but I can only see this happening if the user in question learns to respect others views and the correct usage of the revert. Otherwise, it would just happen all over again. Nja247 (talk • contribs) 21:42, 9 February 2007 (UTC)

I'm not happy that the page got protected (having originally created the article and written a significant percentage of it), but if it's necessary to stop User:Figleaf from reverting edits without discussing it, then it's the right thing to do. -/- Warren 22:31, 9 February 2007 (UTC)

Archive of Talk page

I wanted to get feedback from you guys about archiving this page. Would that be something you're cool with? It's a bit cluttered. If it were archived, how old would you want a comment to be until it's archived? Two weeks, a month? Let me know your thoughts. It'd be easier to utilise this page to discuss article improvements and such if older, non-relevant content was archived away. Nja247 (talk • contribs) 21:47, 9 February 2007 (UTC)

I think anything above "Edit war?" can be archived. Futurix 06:54, 12 February 2007 (UTC)

Product Activation

I don't see any mention of product activation in the article, but the method of activation for Volume License customers has changed significantly in Vista and in terms of the effect on network administrators it's one of the big changes. Vista now activates itself against a local Key Management Server approx twice per year if you have over 25 Vista PCs on your network. There's a fairly clear FAQ on Windows Vista Volume Activation 2.0

I would add an item myself, but I'd be tempted not to lump it in with the "Other features and changes" junk section at the bottom of the article. I'm wary, however, of increasing the size of this hefty, monolithic article. Any advice? Sahmeepee 18:24, 11 February 2007 (UTC)

I'd say - go for it. It is better to have info even if the article is too large (other editors will deal with that). Futurix 06:53, 12 February 2007 (UTC)

Size suggestion

I'm not sure that this article can be downsized much without seriously affecting clarity. How about splitting the article in half, with one half covering issues which would probably be of interest to the average user (user interface stuff, etc.), and the other half covering everything else (technical stuff, etc.). Taken literally, this could mean that some subjects are mentioned twice, from two different viewpoints, but that's probably ok. After splitting, work can then be done on removing any bloat. Once most of the bloat has been removed, can then discuss whether to merge the two again or leave separate. If nothing else, this would resolve the size issue immediately, and edit wars with people who don't know etiquette could presumably be isolated to a single half, freeing the other half for people to work on it.

As for Nja247, I agree; just because I edit an article doesn't mean that it interests me or even that I agree with it; if I see a typo, I'll usually fix it. If you check MY edit history, you'll see my chicken tracks all over the place. --Scott McNay 20:13, 18 February 2007 (UTC)

Splitting out the article for non-geek and technology-affined users is good. But how will you split? The UI/New apps directly will influence the users, in that respect they deserve to stay in this article (assuming this is the one for the non-geeks) and the kernel changes / networking / audio / graphics subsystem changes be moved to the techie article. The intro and the first three subsections of the networking section can be summarized here and the section can be moved. The bulletted list in audio section can be summarized here and the techie stuff detailed (not just listed) in the other article. I am not sure of the graphics section - many casual readers might be interested in it. The Print section can also be summarized here and detailed elsewhere. And programmability section can also be a good candidate for moving. --soum^সৌমোyasch 06:39, 19 February 2007 (UTC)

I did say "this could mean that some subjects are mentioned twice, from two different viewpoints". :)

I expect that the two resulting pages would each be about 75% of the size of the current page. That's still large, but it's a start, and would have the benefit of not forcing non-geeks to slog through stuff that's a well over their heads, as they do at present. Maybe a pair of subpages off of this talk page can be used to do the work (especially if anyone is in doubt about whether it's a good idea or not), and once the split is done and consensus finds it acceptable, the current page can be replaced and a new page "Technical features new to Windows Vista" (for example) can be created as the second page. May need to check referring links for fix-ups afterwards.

Comments/votes on split idea? Note that I don't intend for this to replace attempts to trim, but rather be in addition to attempted trimming. --Scott McNay 09:19, 19 February 2007 (UTC)

• Support. That would also allow retaining depth of information, while managing length of articles. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Soumyasch (talk • contribs) 16:01, 19 February 2007 (UTC).

Oops...sorry, forgot to sign. :P --soum^সৌমোyasch 16:03, 19 February 2007 (UTC)

• Support. Although I'm sure that both articles will be still criticised until you will reduce them to "Windows Vista is an unsuccessful clone of MacOS X (and Linux)" ;-) Futurix 08:37, 23 February 2007 (UTC)

Speech Recognition

(moved to Talk:Technical features new to Windows Vista)

DirectX 10 "Backwards Compatibility" statement

"However, Direct3D 10 is not backward compatible with prior versions of DirectX. So computer games made for Direct3D 10 do not function on versions of Windows prior to Vista unless they also support Direct3D 9."

This statement seems to use a questionable definition of backwards compatibility. DirectX 10 is backwards compatible if it can handle DirectX 9 (or lower) applications. And it undoubtedly will. The actual issue that the statement is complaining about is about the backwards compatibility of the applications using DirectX 10 and not about DirectX 10 at all. Or alternatively, you can take it to be about DirectX 9 not being forwards compatible ;P

Immortius 11:30, 23 February 2007 (UTC)

No, it is fine. You are right in saying that DirectX 10 would be backward compatible if it can handle DirectX 9 (or lower) applications. More appropriately, applications making use of DirectX 9 or lower APIs. However, that is not the case. DirectX 10 runtime cannot deal with DirectX 9 or lower code. So, it is not backward compatible. DirectX 9 apps in Vista need the DirectX runtime (a vista-specific version is provided), and DirectX 10 apps invoke the DirectX 10 runtime. DirectX 10 can reside side-by-side with DirectX 9. The process of choosing which version of the runtime to use is transparent to the user. --soum^সৌমোyasch 13:42, 23 February 2007 (UTC)

I agree with Immortius; "backwards compatibility" is not the correct term to use in the sentence. It would be more correct to say something like "Direct3D 10 will not be made available for older versions of Windows, so computer games which require Direct3D 10 will not run on those older platforms.". It is the games that lack backwards compatibility; the vendors would need to specifically include DX9 support for the older systems. Based on what I've read, it's probably easier for them to simply have a different version for the older platforms. Backwards compatibility for DX9 is included in Vista, so that older games will still work (else adoption rate would surely be low and the complaint rate high). --Scott McNay 14:09, 25 February 2007 (UTC)

Split is done

I've broken out Audio, Print, Networking, Kernel, Management, Programmability, Programmability, and Other into Technical features new to Windows Vista. Basically, this is almost the entire lower half of the original article. There are some things in the second article which should be mentioned in the first article (such as being able to control volume of individual apps), and vice versa; those changes should keep you folks busy for a couple of days. :) I was going to move Audio back, since the second article had a size warning and the first did not, but when I did that, BOTH had size warnings. So, I left it in the new article. There should be less complaint about a techie article being long. :) --Scott McNay 06:22, 25 February 2007 (UTC)

Looks good so far! The "Management" section is still a problem -- some of that stuff is about the use of Vista in a corporate environment, which doesn't really belong in the "Technical" section. Some of it could also be moved back to this article, like the "Systen tools" section. The "Programmability" section probably needs its own article, too.

By the time this is all done, there should be a brief summation of what's in each child article. If we're going to have the audio features in the "technical" article, that's fine, but let's make sure people who are looking for a very brief overview will know where to look.

What we definitely will need in the near future is an Wikipedia:Article series navigation template, to make it easy to see what all we've got. -/- Warren 08:05, 25 February 2007 (UTC)

I agree, the Audio and others were iffy, but my primary concern was the edit size warning, and whether most of each section would interest "the man in the street". Management and system tools tend to be more techy items that a typical home user probably couldn't care less about. Audio was the only one that was fully borderline in that sense.

I looked at the table of contents, and I too had the thought of breaking out programming into a third article, but when I got down to the section and saw what size it actually was (relatively small), I discarded that idea. There IS a bunch of other material which could be moved over to such an article, such as much of the DirectX stuff, but you'd need to haul out the chainsaw. Maybe someone else will have a suggestion on how to better align a further split. As it is, I think the current split is good; the only real issue that I see is whether a different name would be better for the second article. Perhaps simply calling it "part 2" would be better than "technical", which would resolve your concern about the location of Management and System Tools.

Note that I specifically said "companion article" in the summary at the top. I think that's better than having the second one be a child article. --Scott McNay 13:55, 25 February 2007 (UTC)

Just had another idea.... what if we put all the audio, graphics, and other multimedia stuff into one article? It could lead off with the applications, like Media Center, Media Player, Photo Gallery, etc.... then get into the technical stuff (DirectX, audio stack, etc.) in the second part of the article. -/- Warren 01:46, 26 February 2007 (UTC)

Splitting the article

I believe that splitting the article is inherently a bad idea. Any method used to do so will inevitably result in conflicts due to certain features belonging in two or more categories (file and registry virtualization, which is included in both Security and safety features new to Windows Vista and Technical features new to Windows Vista, is an example). Moreover, any split introduces difficulties in navigation due to the aforementioned reason and other causes. The only justification for splitting the article is its large size; however, I believe that meeting an arbitrary, numerical standard is not a good option for this article. Themodernizer 23:50, 5 March 2007 (UTC)

Even if we don't enforce a strict size limit (eg 32kb), there is no denying the fact that the article is way too big. At over 130kb this article is all but impossible to work with. The benefits of reduced article size far outweigh the possible conflicts that could arise and could be dealt with fairly quickly. Harryboyles 05:24, 7 March 2007 (UTC)

I agree with you in principle, and I'm also not personally fond of picking specific numbers beyond which a split should be forced. That said, having multiple articles can work well, if we're thoughtful and consistent on how we split up the information. In addition to Harry's concerns given above, there have been some complaints in the past from readers about the sheer size and unapproachability of this article. That's ultimately who we've got to serve with these articles. How can we improve the situation? I added those article series nav boxes to help, but there's still more we can do. -/- Warren 19:03, 9 March 2007 (UTC)