Windows Vista Build 5456

On Saturday Microsoft released Build 5456 to testers on connect.microsoft.com.

Release Notes:

Many, many of the things you’ve reported in Beta 2 have been fixed.  While we believe this build to be generally better than beta 2, it is an interim build and has not been through a rigorous test pass.  Keeping that in mind we would like you to try it out, move off of Beta 2 and begin filing bugs against 5456.

 

In addition to the many bug fixes you’ll find:

 

·     List View is back!  Thanks to your feedback on this the shell team has added back this popular feature.

 

·     We no longer change the system clock when you set your time zone.  We have removed this feature.

 

·     UAC behavior has changed a bit.  You’ll find deleting things off the desktop to work much easier now for starters.

 

The images posted first will be for x86 and x64 English.  Home Basic, Home Premium, Business and Ultimate are all in the image and can be installed with the appropriate product key.  You will not need a new key for this build.  Existing beta 2 keys will work.

 

The Windows Driver Kit, Software Development Kit in addition to German and Japanese language versions of Vista are planned to follow shortly.

 

What we ask that you do with this build:

 

Upgrade Beta 2 – Beta 2 to RC1 will be a supported scenario.  We need your help finding bugs we need to fix that may impact our TAP customers that have deployed Beta 2 and the Preview Program users who may upgrade.  The below items are a few we know about already.

 

If you must clean install, clean install Home Basic or Home Premium and hunt for bugs specific to that build.  Do the help files point at a feature that’s not there?  Is there something broken there that works in Ultimate?

 

Please take the time to verify bugs you’ve filed that are still active.  Go to Connect and let us know if they still happen or if they have been fixed.

 

When burning your DVD’s please do so at 1x or 2x and CRC them when done using the CRC utility posted on the Connect site.  The customer experience improvement telemetry that we’ve been getting back on Beta 2 shows that not quite ľ of setup failures are the result of a failure to read from the media.   Testing shows that burning at slower speeds greatly increases the chances of a good burn.

 

Things you should know before installing:

 

Remove ApplicationsBefore Upgrading

When upgrading Windows Vista Beta2 x64 to Windows Vista 5456 x64 you may be unable to uninstall applications after the upgrade is completed.  We recommend users uninstall any applications prior to upgrade that you may need to remove after the upgrade has completed.

 

potential Data Loss with Windows Mail

Existing Windows Mail settings AND Data will NOT migrate successfully from Beta 2 to 5456.  Be sure to use Windows Easy Transfer to save any Windows Mail data you care about before upgrading.  You will receive an error message when first booting into 5456.5 that says “Unable to upgrade your message databases.”  Once the upgrade completes you can restore your Windows Mail settings and data using Windows Easy Transfer.

 

Last Logged in User Changed on Upgrade

When upgrading from Beta 2 to 5456, the last logged in username shown at the logon screen after completing the upgrade will be Administrator.  You will need to click the “Switch User” button to login as your user account.

 

Xbox360 as a Media Center Extender

Support for Xbox 360 as a Media Center extender is not included in this Vista build. In order to continue using the Xbox 360 as a Media Center Extender with Vista, please remain on Beta 2 (build 5384). Support for the Xbox 360 as an Extender will be available in a future Vista build.

 

Pseudo Localized Text Present

Parts of the OS contain Pseudo-localized text, or non-english characters placed together to approximate English words. (Text that looks similar to the following: “?i?d??§ ?čđěa Ţlä˙??”)  This is used internally, is known and being addressed in future builds.

 

Username with a . generates error

On a clean install, during OOBE, if you add a username which contains a period (.) in it, you will receive an error message after hitting next that says your computer name is invalid. You will need to remove the period from the computer name to continue.  This is set to be fixed in a future build.