Promises were made. Excitement was generated. None of it, as it turns out, was worth a damn. From a technical standpoint, the version of Windows Vista we will receive is a sad shell of its former self, a shadow. One might still call it a major Windows release. I will, for various reasons. The kernel was rewritten. The graphics subsystem is substantially improved, if a little obviously modeled after that in Mac OS X. Heck, half of the features of Windows Vista seem to have been lifted from Apple’s marketing materials.
Shame on you, Microsoft. Shame on you, but not just for not doing better. We expect you to copy Apple, just as Apple (and Linux) in its turn copies you. But we do not and should not expect to be promised the world, only to be given a warmed over copy of Mac OS X Tiger in return. Windows Vista is a disappointment. There is no way to sugarcoat that very real truth.
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OK, let’s not get silly here. I don’t hate Windows Vista, and I certainly don’t hate Microsoft for disappointing me and countless other customers with a product that doesn’t even come close to meeting its original promises. I’m sure the company learned something from this debacle, and hopefully it will be more open and honest about what it can and cannot do in the future. But you’d have to be special kind of stupid to look at Windows Vista and see it as the be-all, end-all of operating systems. It some ways, Windows Vista actually will exceed Mac OS X and Linux, but not to the depth we were promised. Instead, Windows Vista will do what so many other Windows releases have done, and simply offer consumers and business users a few major changes and many subtle or minor updates. That’s not horrible. It’s just not what was promised. Because it failed so obviously with Vista, my guess is that Microsoft is a bit gun shy about major OS releases and will be for some time. And that’s too bad. Windows Vista was Microsoft’s first chance since Windows 95 to reach for the golden ring. It may be another decade before they try again.
–Paul Thurrott
April 19, 2006
So what do you think about Vista? Will it be a giant bust…another Windows ME? Is it only a moderate improvement over XP?
Reading through his review, it isn’t that scathing. His main gripe is that Vista is not what was promised a few years ago. And that is true. But, it is still a marked improvement over XP, and he still manages to give it 5/5 stars.
Now, my take on it is that it works well. I never had any issues with XP, so I can’t really say whether Vista is more stable, etc. It hasn’t crashed on me yet, and I use it as my primary OS on two computers. Paul is harsh on the implementation of the UAP - the feature that ensures only an admin can make major installations or modifications to the OS. I am not too familiar with how Linux and OS X handle permissions, so I can’t compare whether the MS implementation is better or not. It does not bother me to occassionally click “Allow” when I am installing an app or tinkering with some system setting.
The under-the hood changes are what make it significantly better than XP. So much of the work has been off-loaded from the CPU. The graphics card takes care of displaying the windows shell, the audio card takes care of all of the audio features, etc. Very little work is sent to your CPU if a dedicated hardware device exists. Also .NET apps run faster because Vista has built-in support for the .NET framework.
Regarding Paul’s assessment of 3rd party programs, he might be right. The only 3rd party program I have used is the new Chess game, and I’ve been addicted to that for the past few weeks. For e-mail, I use Outlook 2003. I doubt Outlook Express, the built-in Calendar, Address Book, etc. can compete effectively with that. Windows Media Player 11 is really good, and IE7 fits in better with the Vista GUI.
Overall, I’m quite pleased with it. For an OS that has not yet reached Beta 2, Vista is shaping up nicely compared to how the XP Betas were back in the day.
it sure sounds sweet that the CPU doesn’t do all the work! I think (and hope) that Vista will come together nicely, even though I doubt they really need 40 different versions of it…
I personally dont think vista will be all that good. I’m not saying that because im confident that other people will nod in agreeance, im saying that because I truly believe there is a lot of hype over nothing. I cant remember who said it, but in the amount of time between the release of XP and vista, apple would’ve released 2 (was it two?) ‘versions’ (im not sure of the correct term) of OSX. I havent tried Vista myself, so I cant say whether or not it is all that its cracked up to be. But it seems like such a small improvement when you consider the time they have been working on this.
Still, it does seem like a step up or two from XP.
NB. I am fairly uneducated in this, so please dont burn me ;(
Well they reacrchitectured almost everything… kernel is a complete rewrite I guess…and many things implemented with .net…
there must be millions of lines… gives one of the best plug and play feature and for that needs great deal of code for device drivers…
and such huge software grows it’s ■■■■ difficult to manage no matter how many ppl are there in the company…
even one variable can ruin things…so mind it that even if the time Vista is taking is long, it’s one of the obvious reasons for such a huge software…
I myself love OSX much more than XP, but also have no beef w/ Windows really. It would be nice to see that Vista does do something more to improve it over XP, since I use both OSes. I do though still think that Mac OS will always be a step ahead of Windows–with the execption of Jaguar.
What OSX does is, is it prompts you for your password and starts a session… it’s like a 5 or 10minute session, so if you’re doing the same action more than once it’ll allow it within that session. But for instance if you’re installing something instead of deleting it, you’ll get a admin pass prompt each time, but that’s pretty much it.
does anyone know if Vista will be 64 bit architecture or 32 bit? I personally can’t wait to utilize 64 bit Systems, but also can’t wait for other big companies like Discreet, Adobe Macromedia etc, to release 64 bit applications
Until Vista comes out in a definitive package that MSFT has stamped “This is the final one!” I really think all this is just rumours.
After that we can talk. I’ve seen mmorpg betas and most of those are not much diferent from what the finished product is. An OS is a lot bigger than an mmorpg.
Windows Vista might have a few bugs that MSFT might not notice, but those are going to be everywhere we poke around in.
One thing that I saw and might be one of those things is their scheme for the Z index of Windows. Those should have a gradient of colours associated with the Z index to make distinction easy.
Not to sound mean, but is that Glassy effect all that Vista is bringing as it’s new and shinny Aero features? No controled transparency? Wobbly windows? Just those fixed rate semi-opaque title bar on windows?
I hope that’s not it! At the very least some control over the opaqueness (if that’s even a word)…
Is there a way to change/add themes in Vista? Because just the one would bore the life out of me.
Thanks! …Little greek letter… I get confused with all the languages I know. Sometimes I find myself making errors like that, or speaking in another language by accident. Other times it’s just I can’t remember in that specific language, and yet in another it’s right there. (-:
jolly - you have about 8 or 9 preset color schemes, and you can create your own color scheme similar to how you choose a color in an image editor. There are already 3rd party skinning programs that allow you to skin the OS, but I haven’t tried any of them.
With regards to transparency, you have a slider that adjusts how much transparency you want - all the way from 100% transparent to 0% transparent. Some other things include numerous short transition animations on windows when they are minimized/maximized/etc.
audrius - it will come in both 32-bit and 64-bit flavors.
Microsoft employees read this stuff (because he knows them), and hopefully they’ll do something about whatever he said (havn’t actually read it yet). They did with Media Centre…
I didn’t have the chance to see the new “flagship” of microsoft in action (read about it a lot), but i’m asking myself :“when XP is good enough for me, why pay (a lot) for an “XP” that goes 2 steps further?”
It is neat they improve the graphics, good to hear that they rewrite the kernel. But a nice desktop won’t let my programs run faster or better.
I don’t want to disrespectfull towards the ppl that put their time in things like vista, but… I don’t really see the big advantage of vista to XP. Maybe they should continue to work until they have something that is worth all the fuss they’re creating, lol…
For me XP could very well survive the next 10 years as a OS, without any mayor changes. For the time being, XP is all you need, IMHO…
;(
:thumb2:
