Microsoft Posts, Then Pulls 'Not Quite Ready' Vista Guide

Windows Vista operating system OS

The guide was originally provided to Microsoft's Technology Adoption Partner (TAP) members -- select customers and partners who serve as elite beta testers -- and on Monday, posted to a Microsoft blog run by Fred Pullen, a Denver, Colo.-based presenter in the TS2 partner seminar and training program.

Tuesday, however, Pullen yanked the guide at his employer's request.

Pullen explained on his blog. "Although we had permission from one of its sponsors to post the Windows Vista Product Guide to the TS2 Community Site, it isn’t quite ready for public consumption so I was asked to remove the link."

When the guide was available, it was packaged in Microsoft's new XPS (XML Paper Specification) format, which the company has touted as a replacement for Adobe's popular PDF format, and will support with "Save As" functionality in the upcoming Office 2007. To read the guide, users had to be working on a machine powered by either Windows XP or Windows Vista, and also download an XPS viewer application.