Windows Vista build 5231 (winmain)

Windows Vista build 5231 (winmain) is a pre-Beta 2 build of Windows Vista, which was shared online in late November 2005 only in the x86 architecture.

Setup
Setup has received minor uplifts compared to previous builds of Vista. For starters, the fonts used in both the first section of setup and the hardware portion have been changed. There is also a new fading animation whilst switching between pages in the first section of setup. The "your installation summary" page has also been removed, and its subpages are now just generic pages shown after going past the upgrade page. The progress bar on the hardware portion stage of setup now increases in size depending on how far you actually get with setup. The product key stage now lets the user choose to activate Windows when the user's online.

This build is the first post-reset build of Windows Vista which allows an upgrade from Windows 2000 SP4 and Windows XP. Although it requires build 5223 to upgrade from earlier Vista builds, this can be bypassed by setting the compatibility option for  to "Windows XP".

New features and changes

 * The link to the Avalon/Indigo HTML document on the desktop has been removed.
 * Windows Media Player 11. This version of WMP now supports real-time searches. However, it still has the appearance of Windows Media Player 10 and identifies itself as such.
 * Reliability Monitor has been introduced.
 * A new volume control app that was first seen in build 5209. It allows the volume to be set independently.
 * The tray icon for Network Connections has been updated since build 5215.
 * This build is the first build to support the IPv6 protocol.
 * Windows Memory Diagnostics and Windows Disk Diagnostics were added.
 * Help and Support got an updated look and app icon.
 * Fax Console has been renamed to Windows Fax and Scan.
 * SSL Protection has been added to Remote Desktop Connection.
 * SafeDocs has been renamed to Windows Backup.

Control Panel

 * Accessibility Options was renamed to Ease of Access.
 * Network Center, Saved Networks, Network Connections, Offline Files and Windows Mobility Center were added.
 * Power management options were added into Power Options and the applet design has been updated.
 * "Audio Devices and Sound Themes" replaced "Sounds and Audio Devices".
 * System applet now shows the system rating and activation status as well.

Windows Digital Gallery

 * Interface has been minorly updated, with the most notable change being the new WMP-like navigation bar at the bottom. Windows Picture and Fax Viewer has been updated to use the same navigation bar as well.
 * Several leftovers from Microsoft Digital Image Library has been removed such as "Register Windows Photo Library" wizard and the MDIL about box.

Windows Calendar

 * Toolbar has been updated to use a glossy style.
 * Tasks Pane has been added.
 * Preferences are added. There, settings such as first day of the week and default appointment length can be changed.
 * App also received a new icon which would later be changed.

Windows DVD Maker
This build introduced Windows DVD Maker, which can be found inside the Program Files folder of Movie Maker.

Internet Explorer
Internet Explorer 7 has received a few minor uplifts. Some icons (such as the loading website icon found on each tab) has been replaced with a green ring spinning around, having a similar concept as the Aero waiting cursor. A new certificates page has been added, which can be seen when accessing pages with invalid certificates.

Windows Media Center

 * "Movies and DVD" section has been added to the main menu.
 * Extender settings have been added.
 * Various user interface elements have been updated with their transparent counterparts.

DWM
The Aero theme when DWM is initialized has received a few minor uplifts. The program buttons on the top-right are slightly lighter when the cursor isn't hovering over them. A transitioning effect is also utilized if moving your cursor on top of the buttons, and the glowing effect now mostly resembles that of RTM. These changes were first seen in the vbl_wcp_avalon version of build 5221.

File differences
The following files have been introduced or removed compared to build 5219:

Installation

 * This build will BSOD during the setup on QEMU and modern versions of VMware. Using either VirtualBox, Virtual PC 2007 or VMware with either 5.x or 6.x hardware compatibility is recommended.


 * The  text when launching setup on Windows appears to be condensed on higher resolutions such as 1920x1080.

Taskbar

 * If DWM is enabled, the font on the start button is bolder than usual.
 * If the theme is set to Windows Classic and then reverted to Aero, parts of a taskbar reminiscent of the one seen in build 5048 may be seen.

Migration Wizard
The following bugs are internal known issues found in  in the sources folder.


 * Currently, only disconnected migration is supported.
 * The Drive Exclusion page has no effect on the items to be migrated.
 * To increase performance on machines with razzle environments, you can have the docs agent skip scanning all drives (which can take several minutes on some machines) by setting the environment variable  before running the wizard.