Microsoft News Tracker

Adding to the prior buzz about the impending Windows Vista Community Technical Preview, Mary Jo Foley has more details at Microsoft Watch:

Windows testers will get a new beta version of Windows Vista, dubbed the December Community Technology Preview beta build, just before next week’s holidays, according to tester scuttlebutt.

New to the December release, testers say, will be a number of features and user-interface tweaks. A new defrag module; tight integration of Windows Defender (the product formerly known as Windows Antispyware); and a functional parental-controls filter are all rumored to be in the December Vista build.

There are rumors of Tablet PC functionality as well. As for dates?

OEMs and independent software vendor (ISV) partners are expected to get the December CTP any day now. And Microsoft Developer Network (MSDN) and other Vista testers will be able to get their hands on the build by Monday or Tuesday, if Microsoft sticks to its plans, the testers claim.
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Microsoft officials, for their part, are continuing to hedge on providing a tentative release date for the next full-fledged beta release.

“We are targeting for most features to be code-complete by end of December and integrated into the product by early next year, so customers will have a feature-complete version of the product to test sooner than any previous Windows releases,” said a Microsoft Vista spokeswoman, when asked for Beta 2 timing clarification.

Much more by following the link.