New software for Vista-using UMPC owners could make their portables into something more like what they expected to begin with. However, there may be some hardware out there that won't be so welcoming.

For reasons that may have less to do with Windows than with the limitations of the hardware, the first incarnation of the Ultra-Mobile PC (UMPC) specification went down with a "thud heard 'round the world." In a serious attempt to revive interest in a computing niche that still begs to be interesting, and so far just isn't, Microsoft is steadily reassembling its software portfolio for UMPC, with a new campaign that this time answers more questions, rather than asking, "What is it?" and leaving the answer hanging over a cliff.

One of the key features of the new Origami Experience 2.0 (downloadable here for UMPC owners with Vista) is a more sensible approach to presenting Internet Explorer 7 to a user with a smaller screen: It folds the key features of the Web browser into a toolbar that hugs the upper edge, and that auto-hides either when not in use, or when a Web page is fully opened.

A 277-panel slideshow released late last April of an internal beta shows menu selections, such as Favorites and History, presented larger and more pictorially -- much more appropriate for users with touch-screens or trackballs. The design principle this time around appears to be finding new ways of making PC functionality convenient in a smaller package, rather than miniaturizing the desktop PC experience and preserving as much of it as possible in the process.

A new variant of the Start Menu called Origami Central appears more like what you'd find on a smartphone, with a "Home" screen of often-used programs, power- and signal-related icons along the upper right corner rather than tucked away in the system tray, and big icons on a black background -- which are proving to be much more popular on smaller systems lately.

A screen shot from the vastly rethought Internet Explorer 7.0 for UMPCs - part of the Origami Experience 2.0. [Courtesy Microsoft]

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The 2.0 package presents itself to the user as four programs, although you'd think the vastly revamped IE7 front end would make it count as five. In addition to Origami Central, there's a personal information manager called Origami Now, an add-on to Windows Media Player 11 that makes it more of a mobile media center, an add-in to Explorer that makes operating system settings easier to manage, and a picture panel-based password entry system that could make it easier for touch-screen owners to re-enter a locked down system without resorting to touching keys the size of ants.

But there's evidence this morning that OE 2.0 could have used a few more months in beta. A contributor to the Windows Experience blog has posted screenshots of the software running in his OQO Model 2, showing what appears to be a clipping problem with graphic elements. Icons seem to show up in the wrong spots, and differently sized icons and text show up all over the screen, almost as if whatever routine handles scaling can't seem to deal with differently-sized icon resources. Though you can't see it on a still photo, the contributor noted, the runtime for these layouts was unacceptably slow.

To its credit, Microsoft appears to be spending less -- or even zero -- time embellishing Origami with a truckload of marketing phrases intended to stir curiosity. Two years ago, they ended up stirring something else. And looking at the screen shots of OE 2.0's reorganized Web browser (those taken on a more copacetic system than that OQO), it looks like Microsoft is finally on to something. But UMPC users may want to treat this latest release as though it were a beta, because there may be some UMPC models out there that less patient than others with Microsoft's latest endeavor in paper-folding.