Microsoft officials decided the week of June 5 to cut another feature from Windows Vista: PC-to-PC synchronization.

Microsoft officials said they cut the feature due to quality concerns, but the functionality is still "something we plan to deliver to our customers in the future," according to a company spokeswoman.

Microsoft actually removed the PC-to-PC synchronization capability just before releasing Windows Vista Beta 2, which the company began distributing the last week of May, officials confirmed.

PC-to-PC synchronization was set to allow Vista users to synchronize files between machines running the Vista operating system.

While PC-to-PC synchronization is out, other P2P synchronization technologies will still ship with Vista, including Meeting Space, an ad-hoc P2P connectivity feature, company officials said.

Microsoft is poised to begin making Vista Beta 2, also known as the Windows Customer Preview release, more widely available to testers this week, according to testers close to Microsoft. Microsoft officials said the company anticipates that as many as two million testers will download the Vista Beta 2 code, as soon as Microsoft makes it available on its general download servers. That general availability could happen as soon as later on June 7, tester sources said.

"From the beginning, we have made it clear that the top priority for Windows Vista is quality," the company spokeswoman said in an e-mailed statement. "While PC to PC synch is a great feature that improves productivity and collaboration we don't have it at the quality level our customers demand. As a result the decision was made to remove it from Windows Vista. This is part of the normal beta process as we constantly evaluate, improve and fine tune the features of Windows Vista.

"At this point in the development cycle we do not expect to make any major feature additions or subtractions, but will continue to listen to customer feedback as we begin to prepare for final availability," the spokeswoman continued. "That said, it is always possible to see tweaks with the features, and revisions made to the fit and finish and design work. Work on PC to PC Synchronization continues and is something we plan to deliver to our customers in the future."

Microsoft officials said they planned to use Beta 2 feedback in making the final decision as to whether to continue with the company's current plan to release to manufacturing Vista some time in late summer or early fall and make it available to volume licensees by November 2006. Microsoft is still, for the time being, planning a worldwide launch of Vista and Office 2007 in January 2007.

Microsoft has cut a few features from Vista during the product's development cycle. The most notorious cut was made in August 2004, when Microsoft exorcised WinFS, the Windows file storage system, from the next-generation client operating system. Microsoft basically started product development over again once WinFS was cut, in a move that is known as the "Longhorn reset." (Longhorn was the code name for Windows Vista.)

Microsoft also cut its scripting shell from Windows Vista and Longhorn Server last year. The scripting shell, code-named "Monad," and currently known as Windows Power Shell, will debut as part of Exchange Server in late 2006 or early 2007.