When Microsoft designs a new operating system, they must have in mind backwards compatibility, which is always a great thing to have. However, despite many efforts, you cannot have all old applications run correctly in newer versions of Windows. Windows Vista especially suffered a lot from this perspective. Changing so many things compared to Windows XP resulted in many older application not working properly in this operating system. However, there a few things a user can try to make older applications work in Windows Vista, some with a higher success rate than others.

In this article I will show you how to run older software in compatibility mode in Windows Vista.

In June 2007, we started a series of interviews titled 'Getting to know the Microsoft enthusiasts'. We wanted to introduce to our readers some of the people behind the sites that form the Microsoft Windows online community. Unfortunately we have stopped after our 3rd interview. However, we do think this was one a great idea and we would like to resume the series. Our first guest in 2008 is Anand Khanse, a Microsoft Most Valuable Professional from India who is also the owner of winvistaclub.com, one of the best online communities dedicated to Windows Vista. If you want to know more about him, his life story and his site, don't hesitate to read this interview.

One of the nice changes in Windows Vista is the fact that it introduced many tools that help you to keep your system performance and reliability at normal levels. So far we have reviewed tools such as the Reliability and Performance Monitor or the Windows Memory Diagnostics Tool. In this article I will present to you another useful tool called Problem Reports and Solutions. As you will see for yourselves, this tool can help users troubleshoot the problems they encounter on their Windows Vista computers.

Last month, we published an article called Windows 7 and Windows Vista features that need to be fixed. The purpose of the article was to start a constructive discussion with Windows Vista users about what they believe Microsoft should improve or add to Windows 7. With the help of other Windows Vista sites, we managed to spread the word about this idea and we have received lots of constructive feedback. Here is what Windows Vista users had to say:

One of the criticized changes in Windows Vista compared to Windows XP, was that fact that the Disk Defragmenter allowed you only to defragment all your partitions at once and not separately. One of the changes introduced in Windows Vista Service Pack 1 is allowing the users to select the partitions which they want to defragment. This is a very welcome change and it proves that Microsoft listened to the feedback received from their users.

In this article I will show you how to defragment only the partitions you want and how to schedule a defragmentation in Windows Vista Service Pack 1.

One of the less known features of Windows Search and implicitly of Windows Vista, is the ability to search using natural language. What does natural language search mean? Basically, it means searching by using the same terms you would when asking a person to search for something. For example, instead of searching using 'kind:email author:Joe after:08/01/2008', you would type 'email from Joe received this month' or, instead of using 'kind:pictures location:London' you would use 'pictures in London'. Sounds more simple and natural, right?

In this tutorial I will show you how to enable the Natural Language Search and I will give you a few examples about how to use it.

A few days ago, we were approached by Rich Robinson and asked to review his e-book called 'Windows Vista The Pocket Guide'. Since I saw other people mentioning this e-book on their sites and as we did post here book reviews in the past, I gave it a try. Despite some positive opinions that I have read about this book, I have to be honest and make a sincere statement by saying that it is far from being what other people have advertised it to be. After carefully reading it, I truly recommend everybody to stay away from it. The arguments that I will present in this article will prove that the above mentioned e-book is filled with poor tutorials, useless tips and bad or questionable advice.

Recently, Microsoft launched the Engineering Windows 7 blog in which they want to start a two-way discussion about how their engineering team is working on Windows Vista's successor - Windows 7. I believe this is a nice start and, if they keep their word, Windows 7 is expected to be one of the most exciting Windows releases ever.

Considering the fact that Windows 7 will be built on the same core architecture as Windows Vista, a good start would be to fix the main issues in Windows Vista and refine some of its unpolished features.
In order to help out the Microsoft engineering team to deliver an even better operating system, I think it would be great to have our readers point out the areas which they believe to be necessarily improved in Windows 7, starting from the experience they're having on Windows Vista.

This is our chance to make our voices heard, so... let's take advantage of it. To kick off the discussions, I will start with some of the things I believe to be worth improving in Windows 7:

In the 4th episode of our series, I would like to present to you the Windows Vista Magazine website. As you can imagine, this is the official website of the magazine with the same name. Both the site and the magazine were launched shortly before Windows Vista was launched. Since then it has cumulated lots of contents, split into the following categories: Blogs, Windows Vista Help, Guides, Shop and Message Boards.