An inside look at Windows Vista

Set to ship at the end of the year, Windows Vista will be Microsoft's first major operating system release since it introduced Windows XP in 2001.

The new OS is designed to offer a shiny new user interface, better security, improved data organization and near-instantaneous search. It will be a major gaming platform release because it includes DirectX 10, an upgraded and rebuilt collection of application programming interfaces (APIs) that, according to Microsoft, will offer six to eight times the graphics performance of DirectX 9.0. We're opening our series of Windows Vista features with a look at the most striking feature of Vista, the 3D desktop and the new Aero interface.