Windows Vista Team Blog : Windows Vista, windows Ultimate Extras

Windows Ultimate Extras: Remaining Language Packs are live

Nick White — Tue, 23 Oct 2007 15:06:00 GMT

update: because of a miscommunication, I mistakenly stated that the release of the Serbian MUI pack was held up; this is not the case -- Serbian is indeed available as of today.

Barry Goffe, Director of Windows Ultimate, today disclosed on windowsultimate.com that the remaining 18 19 language packs have been made available via Windows Update.

The additional supported languages are:

Arabic
Bulgarian
Croatian
Czech
Estonian
Greek
Hebrew
Hungarian
Latvian
Lithuanian
Polish
Portuguese (Portugal)
Romanian
Serbian
Slovak
Slovenian
Thai
Turkish
Ukrainian

Also, this release includes an update to the lpksetup.exe installation component, correcting issues that affected some customers at installation. We recommend you download and install this component before installing any language packs; the updated component can be found here.

A multi-language user interface (MUI) pack allows a user to run Windows Vista Ultimate in one of 35 36 available languages. You can quickly switch among languages on a single installation of Windows Vista by associating a system language with your login name.

Barry also mentions his team's plan to ship additional Extras soon, with details forthcoming.

An update from the Ultimate Extras team

Nick White — Tue, 25 Sep 2007 16:52:00 GMT

update 13:59 PDT: DreamScene is not available in the Windows Vista SP1 Beta; however, it will be made available with a later release of SP1.

Barry Goffe, Director of Marketing for Windows Vista Ultimate, has posted an update about Ultimate Extras over on windowsultimate.com. The upshot of Barry's note is that today we're releasing via Windows Update the final version of Windows DreamScene, as we'd committed to doing earlier this summer. We're doing this in conjunction with Stardock, with whom we're offering some really cool new 3D animated DreamScene desktops. Stardock has been a terrific community partner in helping us finalize the DreamScene release and further extending the capabilities of Windows Vista. In fact, Stardock has created DeskScapes, a tool that extends Windows DreamScene by enabling it to run animated wallpapers as .dream files. These files can be looped video or dynamically generated 3D content, and can even change based on a set of triggers. The Stardock Dream Gallery is the place for the community to create, upload and share custom DreamScenes with the Windows Vista Ultimate community.

Pop over to Stardock's Dream.WinCustomize.com website to upload and share the new DreamScenes.

Barry also notes that because delivering only high-quality Extras is our top priority, we're delaying delivery of the remaining MUI Language Packs for the moment. This is certainly disappointing news, but because we found an installation bug late in the release validation process, we are not comfortable with releasing the remaining Language Packs before that installation issue is resolved. It's far more important to provide Extras that give Ultimate customers a completely superlative experience than to meet a deadline by providing a compromised product.

As an aside, Ultimate customers will notice that in anticipation of SP1, the screen that welcomes you to Windows Ultimate Extras has been simplified and the explanation more focused on the breadth of features that future Extras will bring. Windows Ultimate Extras was conceived to extend Windows features and to make using your computer more fun, so this text better reflects our direction.

We expect to provide additional updates on the availability of the Language Packs -- along with news on the pipeline of future Extras -- in the very near future. I'll have more information here on the blog when that occurs.

New Silverlight DreamScenes for download

Nick White — Mon, 30 Apr 2007 06:12:00 GMT

The Sliverlight crew has put together a Silverlight DreamScene that they call "Dusk" and are releasing at MIX07 this week, in both standard 4:3 and widescreen 16:9 aspect ratios. The downloads are part of an updated Silverlight-enabled site that the team will be unveiling on Monday 30 April.

But, as Brandon points out in his post, you can get them ahead of everyone else. He has a video of the download as well in case you want to preview it.

Keep your eyes right here on the blog for more MIX07 news ...

Windows Ultimate Extra 'DreamScene' is available

Nick White — Tue, 13 Feb 2007 20:47:00 GMT

Windows Vista Ultimate users may have noticed a nice little surprise today when checking for new Windows updates: the Ultimate Extras Team has released a Technical Preview for Windows DreamScene. You can get all the latest updates and information from the Ultimate Extras Team over at their Windows Ultimate site.

This Technical Preview currently includes a single DreamScene -- an animated version of Windows Vista's default wallpaper. You can of course expect more DreamScenes to become available in future releases of Ultimate Extras.

First set of Windows Vista Ultimate Extras online

Nick White — Tue, 30 Jan 2007 19:08:00 GMT

Last night we released via Windows Update the first series of Windows Vista Ultimate Extras. To get Ultimate Extras, you must have a copy of Windows Vista Ultimate. The following Ultimate Extras were released last evening:

Windows Texas Hold’em Poker
BitLocker and EFS Enhancements

This is just the beginning ...

Windows Vista Ultimate Extras Revealed

Nick White — Wed, 10 Jan 2007 10:44:00 GMT

This year's keynote at the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas by Bill Gates showed off Microsoft's upcoming Ultimate Extras for consumers who purchase the Windows Vista Ultimate SKU. MS now has three Ultimate Extras lined up to hit Windows Vista Ultimate users on 30th January to coincide with Windows Vista's general availability date.

Windows DreamScene: Windows DreamScene gives users the ability to use a video as their desktop background, just as they would any stationary image background. DreamScene will consist of high-quality looped videos that make your desktop come alive. As a default, we've included a nice waterfall video (shown at the keynote) among several others. Better yet, you can even use your own videos. Want to know a little-known secret? For computers that support Windows Aero, DreamScene offers enhancements to positioning of stationary images as wallpapers in Windows Vista.

BitLocker and EFS Enhancements: MS will provide enhancements to BitLocker in Ultimate Extras, including a tool called the Secure Online Key Backup, with which you can store your BitLocker recovery password on a secure MS website.

Texas Hold'em Poker Game: MS is bringing this popular poker game to Windows Vista. With this Ultimate Extra, you can add to your Windows gaming experience. Hold'em players: Windows Vista's DirectX improvements give you amazing graphics effects in the game -- you can play up to five computer players at once. We've also thrown in the ability to customize the table and cards, too.

Ultimate Extras are slated for release on 30 January, and this is just the beginning -- we're not stopping here. More Ultimate Extras are coming. You're going to want to pay special attention to the brand new Windows Ultimate Web site for updates and information on current and upcoming Windows Vista Ultimate Extras.