Windows Vista - first impressions

http://www.bit-tech.net/bits/2005/08/03/windows_vista/1.html

 

Great article, although I found the apple-fanboyistic remarks a little irritating.

<A88>

 

Nice write up. And I think anything from microsoft gets a very cautious 'thumbs up' untill its released.

 

Try getting OSX to run on anything other than Apple hardware and it doesnt really work though, hence things take longer when you try to support everything

The recycle bin looks good!

 

So? It's just like any version of windows really then?

hmmm. "quick search" and "virtual folders" now where have I seen those features before...

 

Having used it myself, I can honestly say I HATE the new layout totally.
It feels like some horridly flakey java/web interface. I also feel that for new users it'll actually be HARDER to use than the old interfaces, they have tried to make it more informative but what they have done at the same time imo is put far too much on screen and it will confuse the hell out of any new user.

Still there is alot of things to do and as you say its very much a "concept car" I do like the black Areo theme though

 

Nice article. I've tried Vista first hand and i must say - many features don't work etc etc, but its a pretty good start for a 1st Beta imho .

 

i like the lay out however the comments made above by my fellow "forumers" have convinced me not to format my harddrive. Just as you suggested. I will stick with trusty kubuntu

 

Pretty incredible for a first beta. The interface does look a lot prettier - I wonder if there any more effects to come? It would be a start on dousing the old argument that os-x 'just looks nicer, ok?'

 

didnt mention the fact that you can now finally load drivers off a floppy/cd/dvd/usb thumbstick!

i really didnt like the new explorer either, im hoping its just a case of getting used to it again, i dont like the fact that the file/edit/view etc menu has now been scrapped completely or moved below the rest of the toolbars, its just retarded

it'd be nice if MS had a power user option that would change a bunch of default settings, turn off file indexing, folder content previewing etc because strangely when i name a folder "hot redhead" i know whats going to be in it

whats with the "macs pwn!-ed" comments? none of them made any sense
(This is in stark contrast to Mac OSX releases, which get faster with every revision. Go figure. - Ed) <- right because tiger runs just fantastically on 5 year old hardware
(Apple OSX has been doing this since its release of Jaguar, over 2 years ago. Spot a trend? -Ed) <- see bindi's post

vista ran fine on an old lappy i had lying around, p3 1.2gig, 512mb, intel i810 built in graphics
no transparency or anything but it ran fine
i have a feeling the transparency and eye candy is something im going to want to turn off anyway
i felt the same way about the eye candy in vista as i did about OSX, it was very nice and fun to play with for the first few days, then it just became annoying

 

I forced Wil to put "-Ed" in for all his Mac'cy comments so my reputation was upheld.

Obviously the comparisons with OSX are great which is why he brought them up, but you all know as well as I do he can't help himself at having a little dig at Windows when the opportunity arises.

Bless.

 

I agree completely, here some points that I really hate.

1. Why did Microsoft find it necessary to cram every OS function into the "enhanced" start menu but not make it any bigger? Then again I hate the Windows XP one and adamantly use the classic start menu.

2. Why do I want to rate all the files on my harddrive? Porn and Music that’s fair enough but I don't really feel the need to give five stars to my monthly expenditure spreadsheet.

3. Virtual Folders whilst a good idea they are poorly implemented - Go Microsoft!

4. Why are all the icons so f********ing big in copying/moving dialogs? I know Microsoft is proud that they have managed to make an icon larger than 32x32 pixels but its bloody stupid.

5. IE 7 still sucks.

6. The folder icons are rubbish. It was bad enough when they fist did this in Win98 (Dunno?) with pictures and movies but it's now taken it to new levels of stupidness by previewing text documents or any other document in there.

When I tried this with my memory stick which has no folder organisation it brought my computer to its knees building the stupid icon.


After saying that however it still is B1 and will change heavily when the RC1 is released some point next year so we all have to see how well it all pans out

 

can you run some games benchmarks with the 3d desktop on and with it off please?
as I rearly don't belive that having a 3d desktop stuffed full of fancy effects is faster than a 2d one.

also in an idle state on a fresh install would you say it uses more or less ram than xp?

Can we turn off that crappt xp esq look and get the "windows clasic look"?

Can you turn off the logging features that are implemented as "parentel controlls"?

Is my computer still called my computer or is it now microsoft computer?

 

No, it would probably just lead to "Windows copied OS-X" comments instead
Talking about cool things in Swan Vista, but I seem to remember that cool things happened when you use Alt-Tab? Or am I imagining that, or has it been removed from the current beta?

 

yes
yes
just 'Computer' and 'Documents' they dropped the My prefix

 

Ah, well then.. Windows has it's mucky paws in all sorts of pies, prolifically pilfering implementations from other OS's. There was outcry when Windows boasted it could *gasp* multitask, when hey, the Amiga's been doing it since 1985, man.

I like the fact they've given the Windows/System disk an icon that differentiates itself.

 

granted the person said he's not a software tech person, but as a hardware person who's only played with the beta for a few hours before been told it wasn't worth starting to port the major project yet, i'm shocked by that review.

Its quite staggering how much it seams to be set up to prase apple? Thats not an objective review, because when you start crediting other people, you have to do it unerlaterally and fairly.

Fact, windows had hardware accelerated graphics in XP for standard WIMP stuff.

It's always been sugested to programmers that they apply the double buffering, in their own DC, the difference is now (this goes back to 3.1 days) that its not in the hands of the OS. Normally when a window gets invalidated (obscured by another window, which then moves away) the window would be told to only re-paint that section. Most RADs (Delphi, etc.) which a staggering amount of programs are made in, do that double buffering automatically. But not its in the hands of the DX9 system. If anyones ever programed something for OSX this is not what happens.

Bench the pre-BSD based OS's against the BSD based ones, you'll find they've gotten a lot slower (they have to, as soon as you have proper proccess based security EVERY instruction that involves a read or write has to be validated to make sure its not accessing protected stuff). That comment is just plain stupid.

The search, yes they really copied mac, because everyone knows mac has a really good indexing system dosen't it (!).

As for user accounts, under a unix system, you can't install most stuff under a regular account, if its a simple app yes, but as soon as it wants to do something clever, it needs root privs (granted you can chroot jail it). Now in windows this has always been the case to, its very easy to create a run as ????? user short cut, i had to do this for the payroll software my farther uses, because we wanted to create a jail for it (with full encryption).

In short, i can't belive how you've been trying to turn this into a pro mac thing?!

Before you do your 'server' edition review, check
http://msdn.microsoft.com/theshow/episode.aspx?xml=theshow/en/episode052/manifest.xml
explains some of the new server features (all be it boring ones) but at least you get the herritage.

 

Feel i need to reply to this:

In no way shape or form could this be considered a beta. It is an alpha at best, just Microsoft as usual claiming their software is something that it isn't. A beta release marks a point when the code is feature complete, with purely bug fixing from that point on and definitely no API changes.

And with regards to them not finishing everything, and just releasing a partially complete OS anyway, for any other company this would be met with cries of being palmed off and rushing with the inevitable quality of code suffering (tho who are we kidding it wasn't going to be good anyway). Why do people think that it is a good thing that Microsoft is doing this?

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beta_version#Beta

nope, its a beta.

APIs always change in beta on a big project, its a fact of life.

This release is intended for any programmer who wants to make their code stable with Vista. For me, it means i've got to design a new device driver to let my dissertation software run, i get to use the new extended services to make a thunking layer and a resource locker. Fun! As such letting me see this sooner makes my life easyer, and i'm greatful, but there is a reason MS have said on the version i have i'm not allowed to take any screenshots etc. Because its so incomplete. I'm not even allowed to show people outside my uni department it

 

No, I can write what I like, how I like, provided it's not libellous or litigious. Anyway, the whole article says "First Impressions" not "Objective Review" this is straight from my brain to your eyes as how I saw the product.

Besides, there was initially one or two Apple references in there from me and Wil Mac'd it up a bit because he's such a fanboy. I tried to stop him but he just loves them Apple products.