3. Networking

Remember that while Vista Home can join a simple network, like XP Home, it cannot join a Windows domain and therefore does not benefit from Vista's domain-related networking features whether new or borrowed from XP.

WWAN Vista includes specifications and driver support for Wireless Wide Area Networking.

WLAN The operating system provides better support for wireless LANs, for example, automatic configuration for WLANs when a WLAN adapter is installed.

Network Map provides a visual representation of how the Vista client routes to other computers, including on Wireless Networks.

Network Awareness provides seamless switching between networks, for example home and office networks.

Network Access Protection (NAP) identifies and then to isolates "unhealthy" Windows Vista computers. The number one type of "unhealthy" computer is likely to be a visiting laptop. NAP links with Group Policy. So, for example, you can define "unhealthy" in terms of clients with unsuitable DHCP scopes. Other NAP protection includes excluding clients with an "unhealthy" IPSec policy, VPN or 802.1x validation.

Shutdown

Vista brings numerous small improvements for mobile devices, take shutting down as an example. Vista has new APIs that shutdown applications automatically and prevent their hanging. In XP if you tell a machine to shutdown, it may refuse because certain programs have open processes. On a desktop this is no big deal, but on a laptop you may not realize the machine is still active and consequently, when you return an hour later you find that the battery has been drained because the ill-behaved programs refused to close. Vista warns such stubborn programs with an EndSession message and then if they don't terminate themselves forces them to stop so it can then shutdown.

Related to Shutdown is Sleep a combination of Hibernate and Standby that saves current data to disk and to RAM.

Special Capabilities For Tablet PC

Tablet PC aficionados will be happy to hear that Vista is much better optimized for their favorite hardware. It has not one but three parallel stacks for Tablet PCs Windows Forms, COM and the new Windows Presentation Foundation. One practical advantage of the new object model is that it is now easier to design a screen that works in either landscape or portrait orientation. Do note, however, that Tablet PC capability is built into only the Windows Vista Business and Enterprise editions.