Drew’s Daily Deliberations

Ok, let me just come out and say that I have not obtained Vista via the proper channels. Reason being… it is not generally available yet. But I could not help grabbing a copy and putting it through its paces. If I decide it is not for me by the time it is for sale, I will remove it from my laptop and go back to my licensed XP. If, however, I do like it (and so far it looks promising), I will simply buy a copy, and put in my legit serial number.

With the confession out of the way… what do I think of Vista? What do I like, what do I not like, and what improvements have I seen over Beta 2 that I tested for a brief period of time?

There is lots to like. Many people complain that Microsoft did not put enough in Vista, that there are not many new features worthy of an upgrade. To a point, I can understand why they would say that. The most obvious new feature is the new interface. It is much nicer than XP, just as XP was nicer than 98, which was an improvement on 95, which was a massive improvement over 3.1. It is not as flashy as Apple’s OSX, but it does have its share of eye candy. And it does all its graphical wizardry without any noticeable performance hit on my modest Acer laptop. While the graphical improvements are nice, they in no way help me get things done. What does is the new Start menu, with the integrated search capabilities.

From Windows 95 through XP, the way a user works with Windows has stayed very consistent. And many people will use Vista just as they did XP.
Not me.
I find myself hitting the Windows key, and then typing a few characters of what I want to launch next. It is so much quicker to work with multiple applications. I am a multi-tasking maniac, always having every possibly needed application open. However, now I find myself being a bit more tidy, actually closing an application when I am done with it, because I know I can quickly have it up and running again if needed.

Working with files is very similar as it was with XP, which is to say, rather poor. Therefore, I quickly got Directory Opus up and running. I won’t go into much detail about it, but it is a great file manager for Windows.

In Beta 2, I noticed how User Access Control was a royal pain. Microsoft has certainly cleaned it up. First of all, in the usual day to day operation of Windows, you should never see UAC. It only is invoked when you are doing maintenance type work, or installing applications. And when it does pop up, it is quickly dealt with. My only complaint was I wish it had been programmed so a hot-key would dismiss it. But that is a minor gripe.

The installation on my Acer Travelmate 8204WLMi laptop was painless. It detected all the major hardware without requesting any drivers. I have not yet tested bluetooth, sd card reader, or webcam, but they are not necessities (for myself), so I am happy. I have noticed that battery life seems shorter now. In XP, I had Acer’s power management tool loaded, and perhaps that was the difference. I have not done any statistical tests on the matter, it is simply my perception. I also have not yet looked at tweaking the power settings, so this may be something I can easily rectify. One nice feature I have noticed is that the system recognizes when I plug in an external monitor, and will switch the display to it, with the custom resolution I desire. This was possible in XP only with the assistance of 3rd party drivers/software.

The only major issue I have come across at this point is resuming from standby. When it works, it is quick and painless. However, there have been a couple of instances where the screen stayed black, and nothing I could would get me back into Windows, short of killing power and starting a fresh boot. I will be trying to substantiate if it is a particular program running, or a combination of specific steps I follow that lead to this situation.

Other than that, stability has been rock solid. I have had applications crater on me (seemingly through no fault of the OS), but nothing else gets affected. The speed of Windows seems at least on par with XP, if not faster. Some things are an illusion, for instance going into standby mode seems instant, but it is only because the screen fades out as soon as you tell the PC to sleep. In the background, you can see the hard drive light spinning away for some time while it prepares itself. But these illusions are positive I feel, as it gives the users a good feeling.

I have had sporadic application compatibility problems. Some go away on their own, others require updates to applications. Our internal information management system at work, built on IE6, does not function at all. Also, the time/expense tracking tool I use, TimeTTracker MX, requires some trickery to install, and loses its PDA functions currently, until the vendor releases an update. Still, the laptop does everything I need it to do on a day to day basis, and does it quicker and easier (and prettier!) than it did with XP.

I have only touched Media Center minimally. I like the new interface. I think visually it will work better for newbies trying it out for the first time. There are many negative opinions of it online, with many people insisting MCE2005 is a superior product and interface. They can have their opinions, I just happen to disagree with them. The real test will be when I get brave enough to update the living room HTPC to Vista. Then I will see what the WAF (wife acceptance factor) is of Vista’s Media Center.

The redesigned Control Panel layout takes some getting used to. This is one place where I have repeatedly used the new search functionality. I simply type what I am looking for (ODBC for example) and the function I desire is displayed right in front of me. The networking piece is significantly different, but I would expect that with some time, it will seem like second nature. An area of noticeable improvement has been the Add Printer tool. Adding in a HP multifunction laser printer, attached to a jet direct card, was a piece of cake. Kudo’s to Microsoft on improving a rather mundane task.

I started this post talking about a perceived lack of features in Vista. So far, it seems to me like Microsoft focused on improving the core OS, rather than trying to keep up with Mac’s graphically superior OS. One of the biggest improvements will also be one that people “notice” the least. If Microsoft was successful in actually making Vista a much more secure OS, then hopefully there will be far fewer patches needed, and much less time spent fixing the OS from spyware, or reinstalling every few months just to speed things up again. Of course, only time will tell how well Microsoft fared with that.

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