Windows Vista Beta 2 Up Close and Personal
Pages: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5
Accessories
Besides the new bundled applications described in the previous section, Windows Vista Beta 2 also comes with new accessories.
Snipping Tool
The Snipping Tool (see Figure 13) is a screen capture tool that simplifies the task of taking screenshots.

Figure 13. The Snipping Tool
With Snipping Tool, you simply highlight the portion of the screen that you want to capture (see Figure 14) and it will then automatically copy the highlighted screen onto the clipboard. You can paste the copied screenshot into your own application, or save the picture to file.

Figure 14. Using the Snipping Tool for capturing screenshots
Input Panel
If you have a Tablet PC (or a tablet, such as those from Wacom), you can use the Input Panel functionality (located under Accessories-->Tablet PC) for pen inputs (see Figure 15). The Input Panel has three styles for input -- Writing Pad, Character Pad, and On-screen keyboard.

Figure 15. Input Panels
Media Center
Finally, in Windows Vista Beta 2, you can transform your PC into a Media Center (see Figure 16).

Figure 16. Media Center
Equipped with a TV tuner card and a sufficiently powerful graphics card, you can now turn your desktop/notebook into an entertainment center (see Figure 17).

Figure 17. Playing music using Media Center
Summary
In this article, I have shown you some new features in Windows Vista Beta 2. As the launch date of Windows Vista gets nearer, additional features will be added and the existing features will be refined. As of now, Windows Vista shows a lot of promise.
Wei-Meng Lee (Microsoft MVP) http://weimenglee.blogspot.com is a technologist and founder of Developer Learning Solutions http://www.developerlearningsolutions.com, a technology company specializing in hands-on training on the latest Microsoft technologies.
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Showing messages 1 through 7 of 7.
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Windows Vista Beta 2
2006-06-06 07:34:43 nining [Reply | View]
Wo kann ich Windows Vista Beta 2 Downloaden. -
Windows Vista Beta 2
2006-11-20 04:36:30 JHORGE [Reply | View]
Buen dia, estoy interesado en el nuevo sistema operativo de windows (windows vista Beta. Quisiera saber si hay algun demo para poder probar sus funciones.
ATT.
Jorge Hernandez.
Good day, I am interested in the new operative system of windows (windows sight Thread. It(he,she) wanted to know if it(he,she) is algun demo to be able to prove(try) his(her,your) functions.
ATT.
Jorge Hernandez.
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Paint?
2006-05-31 04:30:19 Kelmon [Reply | View]
A thought occured whilst I was reading the sections on accessory applications - has Paint finally been improved to being something useful? When I say useful, for me one of my primary gripes with Paint has been its inability to open more than one document at a time, a limitation that has driven me beserk on more than one occasion.
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Wow, that all looked familiar!!
2006-05-30 23:35:11 pmccann [Reply | View]
I know it has been said a thousand times, but every single feature that was illustrated (bar the collaboration stuff) looked like a direct translation of things in OS X. Surely (surely?) there are some new features in Vista that are going to up the ante somewhat? Can we please see a demo of such things?
Please note that I'm not trying to blame the messenger here, but those five pages were distinctly underwhelming. -
Wow, that all looked familiar!!
2006-05-31 04:35:34 Kelmon [Reply | View]
As a Mac user I have to admit that some of the features described did look pretty cool. Personnally, I'd really like to see the collaborative tool in OS X as well as that looks like it would have application in some of the markets that Macs inhabit. While stuff like the sidebar and saved searches were introduced last year in Tiger, the collaborative stuff is new and I'd really like to try that myself. For the sake of interoperability, I'd like to see Mac and Linux versions of this application as well...





