This question comes up a lot when my friends and co-workers are arguing over the merits of Windows Vista. They say, “My {insert some Linux distro here} only uses {insert another useless amount of RAM here} RAM, why is Vista such a hog?” I usually go on to explain to them about SuperFetch and ReadyBoost, and all the advances and better memory management that went in to these two technologies. All information that is freely available from Part 1 and Part 2 of the Inside the Windows Vista Kernel articles.

However, I believe, Jeff Atwood from Coding Horror does a much better job.

When Windows Vista first came out nearly 3 months ago, I had a difficult time getting my XV-6700 PDA Phone from Verizon to connect to my laptop as a CDMA Modem. After much searching and reading of Microsoft KB articles I realized this driver had been floating around the Smartphone world since 2002. However Microsoft had changed the way they wanted winmodem drivers written around the time of Windows XP SP1, however Windows XP was still backwards compatible. However when Windows Vista was released they made the new driver format the rule, and thus the reason the 7 year old driver will not work.

So after I understood the problem I set out to change the driver based on this KB837637 article from Microsoft. And the follow picture shows how easy in the changes were to make the driver fully Windows Vista complaint.

So after the work I have done, which you can imagine it was mostly reading and understanding of the problem, I am giving this driver way free to my readers and anybody else who would like it. I provide no warranty or support for the above driver.
Download Smartphone USB Modem Driver

If you need help getting this driver to work with your Cell Phone, please check out the great articles from Engadget. They are Verizon and Sprint (CDMA) specific but should easily translate to Cingular and other GSM providers.

• How To: Use your EV-DO Pocket PC Phone for Internet Access
• How To: Use your CDMA cellphone as a USB Modem

Update: This driver was originally made by HTC, however there should be nothing preventing your from using it with other PDA devices that use the Pocket PC winmodem program.

Microsoft has made the full version of Virtual PC 2007 available for download from their web site.

The program is supported on the following servers:

• Windows Server 2003, Standard Edition (32-bit x86);
• Windows Server 2003, Standard x64 Edition;
• Windows Vista Business;
• Windows Vista Business 64-bit edition;
• Windows Vista Enterprise;
• Windows Vista Enterprise 64-bit edition;
• Windows Vista Ultimate;
• Windows Vista Ultimate 64-bit edition;
• Windows XP Professional Edition ;
• Windows XP Professional x64 Edition ;
• Windows XP Tablet PC Edition

That leaves out the Home and Media Center editions of Windows Vista and Windows XP, as well as the Web and Enterprise versions of Windows Server 2003.

It offers the following improvements over previous versions:

• Support for Windows Vista as a host
• Support for Windows Vista as a guest
• Support for Windows Vista 64-bit as a host
• Improved performance compared to Virtual PC 2004
• Hardware-assisted Virtualization (as seen in the picture to the right)

I have been running Virtual PC 2007 since it was released as a released canidate, and I can say I am very happy with the progress Microsoft has made with the product. One thing to not before trying the Hardware-assisted Virtualization is to make sure your computer supports it by checking your processor and getting the latest BIOS update.