Not happy with what Windows Vista has to offer? Well, you will soon have a chance to bring a breath of fresh "open source" air to the latest Windows client. This will be possible with the integration of a Linux desktop environment into Vista. However, Vista users still have to be patient as the KDE Windows Project supports only Windows 2000, Windows XP and Windows Server 2003. According to KDE representatives, support for Windows Vista is in the works, but no timetable was offered as to when it will be offered. But as far as Vista's predecessors are concerned, access to the KDE desktop environment, as well as to the associated KDE applications, is now available.

"We are currently trying to port the KDE-applications to MS Windows. Currently we support only Windows 2000, Windows XP and Windows 2003. Vista support is underway. The preferred way of installing KDE apps under windows is the KDE-Installer," reads an excerpt of the description of the KDE-Windows Project and comes with the following warning: "KDE on Windows is mostly in an alpha state, so not suitable for day to day use yet."

As of January 22nd, Windows users can access the open-source KDE desktop environment, as the project has become cross-platform. In this context, the core KDE desktop applications, the KOffice suite, the KDE games, as well as the Konqueror web browser and the Dolphin file manager can be run in Windows. KDE announced that KDE windows packages have started being released via official KDE mirrors.

"Be aware that the sync'ing from the seed server might need a bit so not all servers will have the new snapshot available instantly. Looking forward, we are currently working on koffice and kdepim - with kdepim having still a longer way to come to an end. Development builds of koffice look quite well so far so that we might bring koffice packages soon," reveals a message posted on the KDE Windows Project official webpage.

KDE Installer for Windows 0.8.5 can be downloaded from here.