The Facts:

Build String: 5219.winmain_idx02.050830-2010

ISO Size: 2.73 GB (2,937,989,120 bytes)

On Tuesday at PDC (Professional Developers Conference) Microsoft proudly unveiled the latest incarnation of its new flagship desktop operating system. Windows Vista build 5219 is to date the most complete and stunning look at this new next-generation OS we've seen yet.

It seems that with every major release so far of Vista we've had a bit of controversy. This time it was leaked screenshots that were from another build date of 5219. Those shots show quite a number of things that you won't see with this build (or they're just disabled by default). It will come as a disappointment to many of you who were looking forward to all of those features. Fear not though, there are many many changes in this PDC build that will keep you poking around for quite some time.

I've had the opportunity to play with this build some and can report a few changes before we get started taking a look at it. The first thing you won't notice, but will need to note is that there are now multiple versions all rolled into the initial setup. The keys provided to PDC attendees are of the "Ultimate Edition" flavor. There are up to 7 others that will determine the general feature set installed. Vista Ultimate is exactly what it implies, all the features, nothing left out. At this point, setup is visually unchanged from previous builds you may have seen. In other words you won't know what version has installed until you get to the desktop and check.

What's not here: SideBar, Windows Picture Library, Game Performance Tweaker and MovieMaker to name a few.

What's new here: Media Center, Tablet PC components, Safedocs, new games, a whole bunch of drivers. Multiple versions of Vista in one single file, installs are based on the install key.