Because It's Loaded With New Multimedia Tools

All those multimedia tools in Windows XP? Child's play. If you're serious about PC audio and video—about watching TV, listening to music, making movies, managing your digital photos, all from your PC—Vista is the place to do it all. For the first time, Microsoft includes a bona fide photo manager—not the skimpy "photo viewer" you'll find in Win XP. In addition, you get beefed-up versions of Windows Media Player and Movie Maker. And with the Premium or Ultimate versions of the OS, you even get an updated version of Media Center, the home entertainment system that used to be a separate operating system.

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The moment I first opened Vista's new Photo Gallery tool, I knew Microsoft had gotten it right. Finally, a single place where we can organize, edit, and share our digital photos. Win XP failed to offer any editing or sharing options, and its organizational tools were almost an insult. Windows Photo Gallery can't quite compete with free photo managers like Picasa (my favorite) and Preclick, or with Apple's iPhoto, but it's still a big step for the OS.

With Photo Gallery, you can organize videos as well as photos, quickly searching and sorting them via tags, dates, and ratings. I love the "slider" button, which lets you instantly resize the thumbnails on your virtual light-table, and the default "Ken Burns" slide-show effect, which dynamically pans and zooms each photo. Windows Media Player 11

And here's a little secret: Photo Gallery actually integrates with the updated Windows Movie Maker, which means you can instantly, easily move photos and videos from one to the other. You can spice your movies up with all sorts of new effects and transitions. Perhaps best of all, now that Movie Maker takes advantage of your graphics processor, it no longer limits movie previews to a tiny 320-by-240 window. And when your movie is finished, you can seamlessly burn it to disc using Microsoft's new DVD Maker tool; you can even add chapters and menus.

Meanwhile, Windows Media Player 11 offers a fresh interface, making it easier to organize, find, rip, and burn your audio files. My favorite perks: You set up songs for burning with a mere drag and drop, and you can add cover art with a simple paste command. I'm into browsing by album cover, too. Media Player is also better at syncing portable devices, certainly a welcome improvement. Check out the "random sync" feature, which can turn any MP3 player into an iPod shuffle. (Whether that's a good thing is still up for debate.) And when Vista finally debuts, Player will work hand in hand with URGE, MTV's new online music service, which will offer more than two million digital tracks. Make no mistake: Vista can excite the senses.