Windows Vista

Windows Vista is a version of Microsoft Windows, an Operating system developed by Microsoft.

Windows Vista was developed with the codename Windows Longhorn, after a bar between two mountains: Whistler and Blackcomb, Whistler being the codename for Windows XP, and blackcomb being the codename for the version of Windows to follow Vista, now named Windows 7. Windows Vista was released on January 30 2007 to the consumers, with a launch event held in January 29, following the business launch in November, 2006.

Codebase
The codebase of Windows Vista is based on Windows Server 2003, though originally builds of Windows Longhorn were based on the XP codebase, the development was reset to be based on the more secure Server 2003 code base.

History
Windows Vista was originally planned as a minor interim release between Windows XP, and what was known as the time as Windows "Blackcomb". Longhorn was the codename given to Windows Vista, as it is a bar between Whistler and Blackcomb, that is the only way you can pass to move from Whistler to Blackcomb, which represented Microsoft's true plans at the time: make Longhorn a simple build to ease the transition between Whistler and Blackcomb.

Plans soon changed, and Windows Vista slowly grew into a huge, major release of Microsoft Windows. Features from blackcomb where moved to Longhorn, and the development of Longhorn got out of hand. That was when the development of Windows Longhorn was reset, starting from the beginning, but this time: it was based on Windows Server 2003, which was the latest and more secure at the time.

As the development went on, Microsoft realized most of the features they promised were difficult to achieve if they wanted a release anytime soon. So, they started dropping many features that have been promised in the beginning, making Vista a less major release, but still considered a huge Microsoft Windows release, and the best in the history of Windows.

Vista Editions
Windows Vista will be available in 5 editions. Each of these editions will feature different options: Each of these versions have an "N Version" in Europe, which removes products bundled with Windows Vista such as Windows Media Player. So, in Europe there is Windows Vista Home Premium and Windows Vista Home Premium N.
 * Ultimate: as the name implies, the most complete edition of Windows Vista
 * Home Premium: home edition of Windows Vista meant for productivity and entertainment at home
 * Business: business edition for small and mid-sized organizations
 * Home Basic: simple home edition of Windows Vista
 * Starter Edition: the smallest version of Windows Vista for developing countries

Additionally, each Windows Vista product has two editions: Upgrade and Full, where Upgrade is cheaper, but does not do clean installations, instead it only upgrades a genuine version of Windows XP into Windows Vista.

Game Maker on Vista
Game Maker 7.0 exports Windows Vista compatible stand-alone executables. There is a converter for Game Maker 6 stand-alone executables to make those compatible with Windows Vista. Some Game Maker users have been spotting incompatibility issues when running Game Maker games on Vista, as glitchy graphics and other minor issues. There is also a bug message when the user starts Game Maker without administrator-rights.

Game Maker 8.0 fixed most of the bugs.