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The Vista guy is here to give you a look at Build 5308!

I just received my trial of the latest Vista Build, 5308, installed and have been looking around at some of the new items and just overall usage of the new build. So, of course, I come to you now to tell you about my experiences with 5308.

To start I will warn you now that this is no where as in depth as my first look at Vista as there really is not that much on the outside that has changed. Most of the changes have been made in the stability of the OS itself, and in more technical items that are not apparent unless you know where to look for them.

Starting with the install of 5308, the whole installation took much quicker than the hours that it took with build 5207. I did move to a different machine than the laptop I used in my first look, a P4 2.6ghz Desktop, but 5207 was still slow to install on the desktop, so there has been a performance boost in the install of 5308.

Once I had it installed (it does all the installation work for you really), the first thing that hit me was the new speed Vista picked up. 5207…

lagged when going through menus and was a pain to work with at times. It also liked to crash quite a bit. In 5308, it is still not perfect (it is still an early Beta), but the speed has been improved vastly and the stability has been much improved (I have had only one error so far).

Along with the items we saw in 5207, in 5308 the biggest new program is the SideBar with Gadgets. The sidebar, which is that little thing that sits on a side of your screen that we saw so many screenshots of with the early LongHorn rumours, is really a container that you can put all your gadgets in. You can make your own gadgets or go to the Gadgets site to download tons of gadgets to use. I had setup my sidebar with a few clocks and an RSS reader for MobilitySite. The neat idea behind gadgets is that users can make them and it is a VERY easy way to customize your desktop along with adding new functionality to it.

Another thing that I noticed very quickly in using the new 5308 is the performace increase in IE7. I have decent high speed internet, but since I am not in town, I only have a 512k DSL line (most of you probably have 1.5mb or greater connection if you have high speed internet). This is usually great for webpages and such, but some with more graphics will take a couple seconds longer to load. This does have one odd advantage when testing IE, it lets me see how well it is bringing in the content and how good it is at caching. I was amazed to see with the new IE7 in build 5308 just how quick it is and how well it uses caching. Sites appear almost instantly and are very quick when navigating to different pages on the same site (thanks to the very good caching), it even seems faster than firefox with caching! This may not be a huge deal to most with high speed internet (web page content still seams to load almost instantly even on my 512 line), but for people on the move that need to use slower internet like Dial-Up or other slow speed connections (through a cell phone for example), the caching can really make a big difference when surfing.

This time around I also took a closer look at the Media Center program that is very similar to the Media Center program on XP Media Center Edition 2k5 (which I currently use). The colors have been darkened a bit and some of the logos and icons have changed just a little bit, but it is pretty much the same idea. I could not however test out the TV Tuner features since I do not have a TV Tuner that supports Media Center Edition (even 2k5).

Still, there are bugs, but this is to be assumed on an early beta. The Security features still are annoying, asking you if you would like to allow programs such as Device Manager to run, and you do every now and then see the occasional hiccup and slow down. I am amazed though by the progress that Microsoft has made in just over 3 months, and with 8 months or so left before the Holiday season, I can see that this should be a really great OS when it comes out.

One thing I would like to mention is a note to people who insist on asking questions and are upset that their Mobile Devices, Cameras, Video Cards, MP3 Players, etc. do not work on the Vista version they have installed….these are early Vista Builds and they are BETA. Microsoft is not selling this product, so this should not be used as your OS on your main PC. Vista is still buggy, and very buggy when you start trying to use it like an everyday computer (in the sence of adding all your printer drivers, PPCs, MP3 Players, Programs, etc.). The betas are focusing on figuring out the core and included programs of the Vista platform right now and not so much on the accessories and such. So please do not freak out if you cannot get your PPC to sync with your Vista PC, remember that most automatic driver installations do not even work on Vista yet! Just my side note to all those complaining on other forum sites about not being able to get their accessories to work with Vista.

Chris Leckness (3547 Posts) - Website | Twitter | Facebook

Chris Leckness is the Owner/Administrator of Mobilitysite. He is a Microsoft MVP, Mobile Devices and a member of the exclusive focus group, Mobius. Chris runs a Mobilitysite, GotZune, and a few other smaller sites and blogs. His personal blog is chris.leckness.com.