Windows Vista

[Josh]

Hey All!
I got my hands on a copy of Microsoft\'s newest operating system, Windows Vista. The version I am privileged to use is Ultimate. This includes everything Windows Vista has to offer. So I\'m just going to take you through some of the main areas of the operating system. I hope it\'s informative and hopefully gives you the ability to further your opinion on Windows Vista and your choice of getting Windows Vista.

[b]Installation[/b]
Installation worried me a little bit. I inserted the Windows Vista Ultimate CD into my computer. I booted from the CD and I was presented with a nice graphical background that screams \"Windows Vista.\" I stared at it for a good 20 minutes. The installation didn\'t do anything for a good amount of time. Finally a window popped up asking me what language I would like to use. English, of course. I continued through the prompt windows; inputting data, settings, selecting preferences. It was all very painless. Finally I get to a window that just showed a percentage of the installation progress. It had to do one reboot of the system and I was on Windows Vista.

[b]Welcome[/b]
The first time you run Windows Vista, it will evaluate your performance. This took me about 5 minutes. After that you\'re presented with your nicely presented icon/avatar with your username. If you have a password on the account then you enter it and press enter and away loads Vista.


[b]Desktop[/b]
Now, to my surprise, Windows Vista loads incredibly faster than Windows XP. I even had the Aero Glass enabled and it still loaded very fast. I didn\'t even see it load. The welcome screen just faded away and there was my desktop sitting there. The desktop is nice and all, but then there\'s an annoying program that runs when you log onto your computer. [i]Windows Sidebar[/i]. It\'s a program that docks to the right side of your screen and as default it has a clock, picture slideshow, and RSS news feeds loaded into it. Now, this is nice and all, but I do not care for these types of things. The clock down at the bottom of my screen in my task bar is good enough, thanks. You can easily disable this by right clicking the icon in the system tray and selecting \"Properties\" and unticking the run on startup option.

There\'s a few changed to the desktop. One of the biggest would be the start menu. There is no true menu if you ask me. It\'s just your start button, it pops up your regular looking start menu from XP with a few new additions and then you click \"All Programs\" and they appear in that small window. Very different and I felt like I was limited on what I could see, but fortunately to all you people who do not like change, you can change this by going to your start menu properties and enabling the classic start menu.

The time window has also changed a lot. When you click (one click, not double) the system clock a medium sized window opens up with no title bar or buttons. It just shows a calendar and a clock. To get the window to go away you just go back to another window or just click on your desktop. You also have the option to change your time and that opens a new window.

Another very nice feature that was added was window thumbnails. Sometimes, there are windows you have open and you have no idea what they are. Instead of clicking on it, you can hover your mouse over the window in your task bar and a small preview thumbnail will appear to show you the contents of that window. Very handy!


[b]Explorer[/b]
No, not Internet Explorer (Which comes installed, of course), but Windows Explorer instead. Also known as [i]explorer.exe[/i]. This has also gotten a facelift. Some things are good and some things are bad. I\'m still not used to it and I don\'t think I can ever get used to it. It\'s just so odd now after using Windows XP.

Say, \"Bye Bye\", to My Documents, My Pictures, and My Music. Everything is now contained in your user folder. For example: Usually you have [i]C:\Documents and Settings\\My Documents\My Pictures\[/i]. Nope! Not anymore! Now you\'ll find your pictures in your user folder. So you\'ll see all of your pictures here: [i]C:\Users\Dren\Pictures\[/i]. It does make more sense to have everything put this way, but it\'s sort of a big change from XP.

Here is a folder tree from Windows Vista:
C:\Users\Dren
C:\Users\Dren\Contacts
C:\Users\Dren\Desktop
C:\Users\Dren\Documents
C:\Users\Dren\Downloads
C:\Users\Dren\Favorites
C:\Users\Dren\Links
C:\Users\Dren\Music
C:\Users\Dren\Pictures
C:\Users\Dren\Saved Games
C:\Users\Dren\Searches
C:\Users\Dren\Videos

The really confusing part of which I can\'t get used to now is the file path box. There is no file path. It looks like a breadcrumb on a website. Example:

Computer > Local Disk (C:) > Users > Dren > Documents

Although, I did fine that if you click on the icon to the left of the file path breadcrumb, you can temporarily show the actual file path. I\'ve yet to find an option to make this default.

Icons are pretty nice now, you can make your icons fairly large. This is great for people who work with images. No more small thumbnails, you can have huge thumbnails.

There are a lot more features they\'ve added into the explorer, but I\'m not going to get into these.


[b]Everything that is Annoying[/b]
I couldn\'t leave this section out! Some of the biggest things I noticed that are annoying include: Warning messages, Security popups, oh... That\'s it. Right, so when you start Windows Vista and you go to change a setting, Windows Vista will prompt you to \"OK\" the action. This is Microsoft\'s way of increasing security. Guess what, Microsoft. [i]It sucks![/i]

[b]What I Like Most[/b][list]
[*] Window Thumbnail previews
[*] Fast logon/logoff loading
[*] Various effect animations
[/list][b]What I Dislike Most[/b][list]
[*] Security messages
[*] Security popups
[*] Windows Sidebar
[*] File structure
[/list]~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~


If anyone has any questions about the operating system and features, let me know and I will answer them here if I can.

/d

[Tami]

In the sidebar, the Picture Slideshow - is that a slideshow of all of the images on your computer? I know you can disable the sidebar, I\'m just wondering if that\'s what it\'s for.

For the security thing, it does the popups and warnings even if you\'re the administrator? Come to think of it, considering the number of n00b parents out there, maybe the security warnings are good. /blum.gif\' class=\'bbc_emoticon\' alt=\':P\' />

I think that the feature which interests me the most - or features, I guess - are the resizable thumbnails and the windows thumbnails. And maybe the floaty opaqueness. I might have to go into Staples and play on a Vista computer for awhile and see what I think of it. I know that the t.v. ads the networks were using when Vista first came out were pretty impressive. They were using Vista to show previews, trailers, news bits, etc. and they did look really nice.

[Josh]

It is really nice, actually. I was just telling Wayne in messenger I can\'t really find anything to bash Microsoft for. LOL.

Yes, the rotating image thingy rotates through the images on your computer. I\'m assuming in your pictures folder.

Yeah, the stupid security warnings come up for administrators, but then again... There are those computer challenged people.

Remember this Aero glass theme only works on systems that can handle the graphics and have bought a certain package of Windows Vista. I forget which one, but I have ultimate so that\'s what is working for me lol.

[Tami]

Yeah, I know that Aero only works on some puters...but believe me, if I were to upgrade to Vista, it won\'t be on this puter /bigwink.gif\' class=\'bbc_emoticon\' alt=\';)\' />

[Trinity]

It looks a lot like my Mac /blum.gif\' class=\'bbc_emoticon\' alt=\':P\' />

Have only used it at Uni, but Josh - what do you think of the new way that explorer handles searching?

[Wayne]

[quote name=\'Tami\' post=\'38869\' date=\'Apr 19 2007, 01:05 AM\']Yeah, I know that Aero only works on some puters...but believe me, if I were to upgrade to Vista, it won\'t be on this puter /bigwink.gif\' class=\'bbc_emoticon\' alt=\';)\' />[/quote]


Yup if I upgrade I\'ll place the OS on my external no way I\'m going through partitioning issues between Linux and Windows then end up hating it .... /blink.gif\' class=\'bbc_emoticon\' alt=\':blink:\' />


**edit for stupid typos by me, the typo king.

[Josh]

I think I like the new search options. It really handles things well and is realtively quick. However, I do not like how you have to type your queries and things in the top of the window, but that\'s probably just because I am used to XP side panel searching. /smile.gif\' class=\'bbc_emoticon\' alt=\':)\' />

[Marko]

Ok after all the \"wow\" about vista I finally tried it.
I do not like it one bit. Sure it has some nice effects, but that\'s all eye candy(and I even got tired of that), the rest of it is purely annoying. It feels too clustered and makes everything more complicated by making it too simple. (If that makes sense)
Furthermore its a resource hog and programs that you would normally be able to run on xp you may have trouble running on vista.

So, no thanks, I\'ll be sticking with my XP.

[mrmark01]

I have to agree with Marko,

We've tried at our company on a couple of our boxes. The visuals are ok but that's about were it ended for us. We could not load our software which works perfectly on XP. The security warnings and pops are a pain in the #%# You would think they would at least allow the administrator accound the ability to turn off that crap.

So until are programmers figure what's what we will be sticking with what we know works.

/shades.gif\' class=\'bbc_emoticon\' alt=\'B)\' />

[Josh]

By default you are not running on the Administrator account when you install Windows Vista. You\'re probably used to the fact that Windows XP made the first user the default administrator account on the machine. With Vista, this has been disabled. When you create the first account on Vista, it is a regular user profile account. To enable the Administrator account you have to edit a registry setting. I don\'t know this setting off the top of my head, but on the Administrator account the annoying security popups are disabled by default /smile.gif\' class=\'bbc_emoticon\' alt=\':)\' />

[ner0]

So Josh, you\'ve been using vista a while now, long enough to get used to it I\'d say...

would you recommend upgrading from XP now? <3

[Josh]

NO! Absolutely NOT lol

[ner0]

haha I didn\'t imagine so, thanks!