My Vista review ;)

OK so I finally got Beta 2 installed and from playing around for an hour I noticed some cool things:

1) I was delighted to know that Aero was working right out of the box with fair performance though I still got the latest ATI drivers.

2) UAC isnt bad at all really. I get a few prompts every so often, much like I do on Linux.

3) The new help features are hot! Especially those step by step tutorials that demonstrate exactly what to click on. Very cool!

4) Windows Explorer is more streamlined now from what I can tell. The address bar is more advanced with menus. The toolbar seem to replace the menubar and the task planes are more intuitive I think.

5) Internet Explorer 7+ has more security features. I spent awhile playing with the new phishing filter, security zone, content advisor, and parental controls; neat new features to say the least.

6) The programs menu is more compact now so it doesnt fill up so much screen space anymore.

7) The new system performance rating is an interesting idea that could simplify software system requirements to just Vista number ratings? My system scored mid to high 3's on each category except my graphics card, which recieved a 4.1.

8) OK. The eyecandy and effects experience reminds me of when I tried MacOS X. The 3D task-swicher reminds me of the XGL a little.

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So far I am only disappointed with is the lack of multiple workspaces like Linux/Unix desktop environments. I think that would have been a useful feature in Vista. Or is there and I didnt notice it yet?

The performance isnt quite as great as XP but thats understandable since Aero is fairly resource demanding and because my system is a few years. Overall it seems decent enough and will get a boost by disabling glass.

Conclusion: So far Windows Vista simply rocks and will only be better by the final release date. I also think Vista packs enough "coolness" factor to quiet down the Apple fanboys for awhile.

Regards,
Vincent

Yeah... I'm pretty sure nothing will quiet down Mac fanboys.

Is there nothing else that you didn't like about it? Just the desktop switching?

Well I've only been using Vista for a few hours now... so I have only checked out the basics. From what I can tell, everything seems to be a signifcant improvement over XP with close attention to graphical effects.

I'll say this though... I think the taskbar and start button concepts are losing their style. These were basically introduced in Windows 95 ten years ago and are really aging IMHO. I would love to see Microsoft innovate something new for the next major version of Windows following Vista.

What do you think?


Regards,
Vincent

Xaero_Vincent wrote:



Well I've only been using Vista for a few hours now... so I have only checked out the basics. From what I can tell, everything seems to be a signifcant improvement over XP with close attention to graphical effects.

I'll say this though... I think the taskbar and start button concepts are losing their style. These were basically introduced in Windows 95 ten years ago and are really aging IMHO. I would love to see Microsoft innovate something new for the next major version of Windows following Vista.

What do you think?


Regards,
Vincent

Well I think the person who invented the wheel should innovate something better because its getting a bit old.  My point is why innovate when you have something tried and tested that works great?  BTW Microsoft stole the Start bar from OS/2 I believe since that OS was the first to have it.  Then linux innovated and put it up at the top and then added a little strip at the bottom that held the Taskbar functionality which I tend to like alot better in alot of cases but it does tend to have the ability to steal more estate than just one bar if you dont manage it correctly. 

I do agree the performance seems a bit sluggish but my main complaint is the stupid 3D-Switcher thing they built in...It was cool at first and then I went to use it and well its just not as informative as I thought it was gonna be, I had two similar screens and I couldnt tell which one was which.  I wish they would have copied the Expose thing that XGL and OSX has in it where all the windows shrink to the desktop so you can see them all at once...But since its all supported by WPF I am guessing someone will be able to release a plugin that does just that very soon!!

ElucidWeb wrote:



 BTW Microsoft stole the Start bar from OS/2 I believe since that OS was the first to have it. 

??  well since MSFT wrote most of OS/2 I really don't think thats "stealing"

ElucidWeb wrote:

But since its not all supported by WPF I am guessing someone will not be able to release a plugin that does just that very soon!!

However I think they're looking to provide some native API that could make something like that possible later..

Can anyone answer (If it hasn't already) is this the same build that went out to connect and msdn testers awhile ago?

OS/2 3.0 was the current version when Windows 95 shipped and it had neither a start menu or a taskbar.

Win95 did however try to mimic quite a bit of the object oriented concepts of OS/2's Workplace Shell.

Apple had a semi start menu in the classic Apple menu, but from what I understand, it was a hack to actually customize it with the user's programs. I don't know if it eventually became an official feature.

As for alternatives, I think it's the best of the current solutions. I don't much like Mac OS X's application oriented dock (unless you're running nothing but single window single instance applications) and  hiding the window list under a middle click or something on the desktop like traditional *ni*x WMs do is not very discoverable.

I used to use WindowMaker and would stack my minimized window icons up from the lower left corner of the screen. Maybe a vertical dock in that position that had icons for each window like the Windows taskbar instead of for each app like the Mac would work.

Then again I can fit 12 taskbar buttons in less space than they would take going up the edge of my screen.

Cybermagellan wrote:

Can anyone answer (If it hasn't already) is this the same build that went out to connect and msdn testers awhile ago?

My understanding is that it is indeed.

Yeah... it looks a bit like Mac... it must be a good O/S.

I can sleep happy tonight, knowing I won't have a problem... 'cos the interface is cool.

Xaero_Vincent wrote:

2) UAC isnt bad at all really. I get a few prompts every so often, much like I do on Linux.

Finally! Someone who agrees with me!

Although I will say that the experience with deleting files that you don't have access to must be streamlined. Right now I just launch an elevated explorer session when I want to do that, much easier.

I like windows vista beta 2 but I was dissapointed they did not make a halo 2 or unreal tournament 2007 beta for vista beta 2

 

DCMonkey wrote:



Apple had a semi start menu in the classic Apple menu, but from what I understand, it was a hack to actually customize it with the user's programs. I don't know if it eventually became an official feature.

It was an official feature, and all you had to do to get items in it was to put aliases (shortcuts) in the right folder -- just like the Start Menu.

That didn't make up for the crappy memory management or weak multitasking.

Thankfully, OSX isn't MACOS. It's NextStep!

well, the style of vista is not really near to perfect.

some questions i asked myself on my blog:

When i round trip in windows explorer, using the keyboard to navigate is not possible unless you select a folder or file with the mouse. this makes it unimpossible to navigate by keyboard. note that this behavior can only be seen when you opened another place in it after you opened the windows explorer itself. Hopefully this is just a bug.

Why does the sidebar have 1 pixel transparent borders on the left and right side when it is in the "in front" mode? It doesn't have those borders when set to normal.

Why do some Controls like scrollbars or also some buttons have a nice rollover fade animation effect while others don't? Compare for example hovering over the breadcrumbs bar, the drop down arrow of the search field or the scroll bars in windows explorer with the task buttons in the taskbar, the windows orb, the selections in the start menu and many more.

Why are the shadows of drop down menus, tooltips and other stuff not perspectively correct in comparison to the glass window shadows?

Why are there shadows in a completely wrong direction in windows defender and system settings with ultimate extras information in comparison to the glass window shadows?

Why don't I get focus in the address field of IE after pressing ALT+T for opening up a new tab?

Why are there sometimes black or white blocks instead of the content of a window when starting a program or dialog? I thought it gets all rendered through the graphics card and direct x, never saw such artifacts in games!

Why do I need to see window flickering/artifacts when resizing a window (with correctly redraw of the windows contents/controls lagging behind the window size)? this is somewhat outdated, don't we have 2006 and fast computers? why doesn't it just resize it internally, wait for a corrected version and than draw it to the screen or something like that?

The mouse dialog has the same mouse icon as it was used since win 95. Very classic.

Why do the minimize and maximize animations flicker or disappear when you have a window in maximized state and minimize or maximize a normal sized explorer window in front of it?