Dear Longhorn / Windows Vista Beta Tester, We are pleased to announce that build 5472 of Windows Vista is available for your testing! This build contains numerous fixes since build 5456 and demonstrates significant progress on customer feedback since Beta 2. Most notably a new Nvidia driver has fixed many reported issues and recent changes should provide improved Windows Media Center performance. You should be aware though that this is an interim build and while significant testing is always done, it has not undergone the rigorous testing that Beta 2 did. We believe that most people will find this build improved but as with any interim you may encounter issues we do not yet know about. Please move up to this build from any previous build and tell us about any problems you encounter.

What we ask that you do with this build: Upgrade Beta 2 - Beta 2 to RC1 will be a supported scenario. We need your help finding bugs we need to fix that may impact our TAP customers that have deployed Beta 2 and the Preview Program users who may upgrade. We do not ask, nor do we recommend, that you upgrade any other build besides Vista Beta 2 or Windows XP to this build. Please take the time to verify any bugs you have filed that are still active then visit the Connect site and let us know if they still happen or if they have been fixed. After you have had time to install and look the build over briefly, please post a short review of your observations and opinions as a reply to the thread "Post Your 5472 Mini Reviews Here" in the Microsoft.beta.longhorn.beta_program newsgroup.

Keep in mind when burning your DVDs please do so at 1x or 2x and CRC them when done using the CRC utility posted on the Connect site. The customer experience improvement telemetry that we've been getting back on Beta 2 shows that the vast majority of setup failures are the result of a failure to read from the media. Testing shows that burning at slower speeds greatly increases the chances of a good burn.

Please take the time to download and provide feedback as early as possible. Information about ways to provide feedback can be located in the Feedback icon on the desktop of your Windows Vista system. Participants may access the new build immediately by going to the Longhorn/Windows Vista home page on Connect and selecting Downloads from the left-hand pane. The following download packages are available on http://connect.microsoft.com. There will be no server images made available for this build.

Your previous keys from package [5342 and Up] will continue activate Ultimate edition and your Beta 2 keys for Home, Home Premium, and Business will continue to work. Please remember that you may request 3 Ultimate keys and 1 Home/Premium Premium/Business and each key will activate 5 distinct machines and that your activations are reset with each new build you install.