Windows Ultimate Extras were optional features offered by

Microsoft Microsoft Corporation is an American multinational technology corporation producing computer software, consumer electronics, personal computers, and related services headquartered at the Microsoft Redmond campus located in Redmond, Washin ...

to users of the Ultimate edition of

Windows Vista Windows Vista is a major release of the Windows NT operating system developed by Microsoft. It was the direct successor to Windows XP, which was released five years before, at the time being the longest time span between successive releases of ...

and are accessible via

Windows Update Windows Update is a Microsoft service for the Windows 9x and Windows NT families of operating system, which automates downloading and installing Microsoft Windows software updates over the Internet. The service delivers software updates for Wind ...

. Ultimate Extras replaced the market role of Microsoft Plus!, a product sold for prior consumer releases of Microsoft Windows. According to Microsoft's Barry Goffe, the company's goal with Ultimate Extras was to delight customers who purchased the Ultimate edition of Windows Vista, the most expensive retail edition of the operating system. Windows Ultimate Extras have been discontinued as of

Windows 7 Windows 7 is a major release of the Windows NT operating system developed by Microsoft. It was released to manufacturing on July 22, 2009, and became generally available on October 22, 2009. It is the successor to Windows Vista, released nearly ...

and the operating system also removes all installed extras during an upgrade from Windows Vista Ultimate.

Microsoft released a total of nine Ultimate Extras for users of Windows Vista Ultimate.

BitLocker and EFS enhancements

The

BitLocker BitLocker is a full volume encryption feature included with Microsoft Windows versions starting with Windows Vista. It is designed to protect data by providing encryption for entire volumes. By default, it uses the AES encryption algorithm i ...

Drive Preparation Tool utility and the Secure Online Key Backup utility were among the first Ultimate Extras to be made available, and were released to coincide with the general retail availability of Windows Vista. BitLocker Drive Preparation Tool prepares the hard drive to be encrypted with BitLocker, whereas Secure Online Key Backup enabled users to create an off-site backup of their BitLocker recovery password and

Encrypting File System The Encrypting File System (EFS) on Microsoft Windows is a feature introduced in version 3.0 of NTFS that provides filesystem-level encryption. The technology enables files to be transparently encrypted to protect confidential data from attackers ...

recovery certificates at Digital Locker, as part of the Windows Marketplace

digital distribution Digital distribution, also referred to as content delivery, online distribution, or electronic software distribution, among others, is the delivery or distribution of digital media content (media), content such as Sound recording and reproductio ...

platform. Secure Online Key Backup was rendered inoperable after Digital Locker shut down in August 2009.

Multilingual User Interface language packs

Unlike previous versions of Windows, Windows Vista is language-independent; the language architecture separates the language resources for the user interface from the binary code of the operating system. Support for installing additional languages is included in the Enterprise and Ultimate editions of Windows Vista. In the Ultimate edition, the functionality is made available through Windows Update as Ultimate Extras. Microsoft stated that 16 languages were made available on January 30, 2007. The company released the remaining language packs on October 23, 2007 for a total of 35 language packs. An additional 36th language pack version is available for Windows Vista that supports

traditional Chinese characters Traditional Chinese characters are one type of standard Chinese character sets of the contemporary written Chinese. The traditional characters had taken shapes since the clerical change and mostly remained in the same structure they took at ...

with the

Hong Kong Supplementary Character Set The Hong Kong Supplementary Character Set (; commonly abbreviated to HKSCS) is a set of Chinese characters – 4,702 in total in the initial release—used in Cantonese, as well as when writing the names of some places in Hong Kong (whether in w ...

''Microsoft Tinker''

''Microsoft Tinker'' is a

puzzle game A puzzle is a game, problem, or toy that tests a person's ingenuity or knowledge. In a puzzle, the solver is expected to put pieces together ( or take them apart) in a logical way, in order to arrive at the correct or fun solution of the puzzle ...

where players must navigate a

robot A robot is a machine—especially one programmable by a computer—capable of carrying out a complex series of actions automatically. A robot can be guided by an external control device, or the control may be embedded within. Robots may be c ...

through mazes and obstacles. A total of 60 levels are included, and players can create their own levels with a

level editor In Video game, video games, a level (also referred to as a map, stage, or round in some older games) is any space available to the player during the course of completion of an objective. Video game levels generally have progressively-increasing ...

''Hold 'Em''

''Hold 'Em'' (formerly ''Windows Poker'' as in build 5284) is a

poker Poker is a family of comparing card games in which players wager over which hand is best according to that specific game's rules. It is played worldwide, however in some places the rules may vary. While the earliest known form of the game w ...

card game A card game is any game using playing cards as the primary device with which the game is played, be they traditional or game-specific. Countless card games exist, including families of related games (such as poker). A small number of card ...

released on January 29, 2007 that is fundamentally similar to

Texas hold 'em Texas hold 'em (also known as Texas holdem, hold 'em, and holdem) is one of the most popular variants of the card game of poker. Two cards, known as hole cards, are dealt face down to each player, and then five Community card poker, communit ...

. ''Hold 'Em'' allows users to play against up to five computer players and up to three levels of difficulty, and also allows users to customize aspects of the game's appearance; the game relies on

DirectX Microsoft DirectX is a collection of application programming interfaces (APIs) for handling tasks related to multimedia, especially game programming and video, on Microsoft platforms. Originally, the names of these APIs all began with "Direct", ...

to produce hardware-accelerated 3D animations and effects. For optimal performance, ''Hold 'Em'' requires a computer with a Windows Experience Index rating of 2.0 or higher. According to Paul Thurrott, ''Hold 'Em'' was originally intended to be bundled alongside the premium games—''

Chess Titans ''Chess Titans'' is a chess video game with 3D graphics developed by Oberon Games and included in Windows Vista and Windows 7 Home Premium, Business/Professional, Enterprise, and Ultimate. It is a fully animated, photorealistic interactive chess ...

'', ''

Mahjong Titans ''Microsoft Mahjong'' (formerly ''Mahjong Titans'', ''Shanghai Solitaire'' and ''Taipei'') is a computer game version of mahjong solitaire published by Microsoft. The version titled ''Mahjong Titans'' was developed by Oberon Games and included ...

'', and ''

InkBall InkBall is a computer game that is included with Windows XP Tablet PC Edition 2005 and Windows Vista except the Starter and Home Basic editions. It employs the use of a stylus or mouse to draw lines to direct balls into holes of correspondin ...

''—included by default with the Home Premium and Ultimate editions of Windows Vista, but was instead made an Ultimate Extra because of its gambling themes.

Windows sound schemes

A total of three sound schemes for Windows Vista were released: Ultimate Extras Glass, Ultimate Extras Pearl, and Microsoft Tinker. The first two were made available on April 22, 2008, while the latter was made available on the same day as ''Microsoft Tinker''. The ''Glass'' and ''Pearl'' sound schemes are similar to the ''Default'' sound scheme included in Windows Vista as they were also developed in accordance with the design language and principles of the

Windows Aero Windows Aero (a backronym for ''Authentic, Energetic, Reflective, and Open'') is a design language introduced in the Windows Vista operating system. The changes made in the Aero interface affected many elements of the Windows interface, includin ...

graphical user interface The GUI ( "UI" by itself is still usually pronounced . or ), graphical user interface, is a form of user interface that allows users to interact with electronic devices through graphical icons and audio indicator such as primary notation, inste ...

Windows DreamScene

Windows DreamScene is a utility that enables

MPEG The Moving Picture Experts Group (MPEG) is an alliance of working groups established jointly by International Organization for Standardization, ISO and International Electrotechnical Commission, IEC that sets standards for media coding, includ ...

and

WMV Windows Media Video (WMV) is a series of video codecs and their corresponding video coding formats developed by Microsoft. It is part of the Windows Media framework. WMV consists of three distinct codecs: The original video compression technology ...

videos to be displayed as desktop backgrounds. DreamScene requires that the Windows Aero graphical user interface be enabled in order to function as the feature relies on the

Desktop Window Manager Desktop Window Manager (DWM, previously Desktop Compositing Engine or DCE) is the compositing window manager in Microsoft Windows since Windows Vista that enables the use of hardware acceleration to render the graphical user interface of Window ...

to display videos on the desktop.

Proposed extras

Additional extras were also proposed but not released, including a

podcast A podcast is a program made available in digital format for download over the Internet. For example, an episodic series of digital audio or video files that a user can download to a personal device to listen to at a time of their choosing ...

creation application, a game performance optimization utility, custom themes, exclusive access to online content and services,

Windows Movie Maker Windows Movie Maker (known as Windows Live Movie Maker for the 2009 and 2011 releases) is a discontinued video editing software program by Microsoft. It was first included in Windows Me on September 14, 2000 and in Windows XP on October 25, 2001 ...

effects and transitions, templates for

Windows DVD Maker Windows DVD Maker is a discontinued DVD authoring application developed by Microsoft introduced in Windows Vista, available in the Home Premium and Ultimate editions of Windows Vista for users to create slideshows and videos for playback on media ...

, digital publications, and the Group Shot photo manipulation application developed by

Microsoft Research Microsoft Research (MSR) is the research subsidiary of Microsoft. It was created in 1991 by Richard Rashid, Bill Gates and Nathan Myhrvold with the intent to advance state-of-the-art computing and solve difficult world problems through technologi ...

and shown by

Bill Gates William Henry Gates III (born October 28, 1955) is an American business magnate and philanthropist. He is a co-founder of Microsoft, along with his late childhood friend Paul Allen. During his career at Microsoft, Gates held the positions ...

at the

Consumer Electronics Show CES (; formerly an initialism for Consumer Electronics Show) is an annual trade show organized by the Consumer Technology Association (CTA). Held in January at the Las Vegas Convention Center in Winchester, Nevada, United States, the event typi ...

in 2007. Although not considered to be Ultimate Extras by the company, the Ultimate Extras team also released two wallpapers for users of Windows Vista Ultimate. Titled ''Start'' and ''Strands'', the wallpapers were based on the design of the Windows Vista Ultimate retail packaging and were made available in three different display resolutions.

Critical reception

Reaction to Windows Ultimate Extras was mixed. While Microsoft was praised for creating a value proposition for users who purchased the most expensive edition of Windows Vista, the company was criticized for its delays during delivery of updates, perceived lack of quality of delivered updates, and a lack of transparency regarding their development. Early on, there were concerns that the features would not live up to users' expectations. The company announced several Ultimate Extras in January 2007, but only a fraction of these were released five months later. After months without an official update since January, Microsoft released an apology for the delays, stating that it intended to ship the remaining features before the end of summer of 2007. The delays between consecutive updates and months of silence had led to speculation that the development team within the company responsible for the features had been quietly disbanded. When Microsoft announced its intentions to release the remaining Ultimate Extras and released an apology for delays, Paul Thurrott stated that the company had "dropped the ball" with the features.

Ed Bott Ed Bott is an American technology journalist and author, known for his books and articles on Microsoft Windows. While he has over twenty years of experience writing about a variety of tech-related topics and has written for some well-known medi ...

wrote that Ultimate Extras were "probably the biggest mistake Microsoft made with Vista," and that the company would downplay the Ultimate edition of Windows 7 as a result. Bott would later list them among his "decade's worth of Windows mistakes." Microsoft was also criticized for changing the description for Ultimate Extras within the operating system. The offerings slated to be made available were initially described as "cutting-edge programs," "innovative services," and "unique publications," but the description for the features within the Control Panel applet was later modified in Windows Vista

Service Pack 1 In computing, a service pack comprises a collection of updates, fixes, or enhancements to a software program delivered in the form of a single installable package. Companies often release a service pack when the number of individual patches to a ...

to be more modest; this was interpreted as an attempt made by the company to avoid fulfilling prior expectations. Emil Protalinski of ''

Ars Technica ''Ars Technica'' is a website covering news and opinions in technology, science, politics, and society, created by Ken Fisher and Jon Stokes in 1998. It publishes news, reviews, and guides on issues such as computer hardware and software, sci ...

'' wrote that the Ultimate edition of Windows Vista "would have looked just fine without the joke that is 'Ultimate Extras'" and that the features were supposed to provide an incentive for consumers to purchase that edition, "not give critics something to point and laugh at." In the second part of his review of Windows 7, Peter Bright of ''Ars Technica'' wrote that "the value proposition of the Ultimate Extras was nothing short of piss-poor." Bright would later criticize Microsoft's decision not to release

Internet Explorer 10 Internet Explorer 10 (IE10) is the tenth, and by now, discontinued, version of the Internet Explorer web browser and the successor to Internet Explorer 9, released by Microsoft on September 4, 2012, shortly after the completion of Windows Serv ...

for Windows Vista, but would go on to state that this was still "not as bad as the Ultimate Extras farce."

References

{{Microsoft Windows components Discontinued Windows components Ultimate Extras

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