My thoughts on Vista

A

Andreas Masur [MVP]

No, but it sounds like you're believing the little macs and linux guano.
Click to expand...

Well...yet they seem to have a better understanding of user interfaces...
;)

Ciao, Andreas
 
R

Robert J Collins

My comments are inline below:

- "Which window is the active one?" Windows are all the same color. There is
no way to specify different colours for the active and inactive windows.

[WillowTree:Rob] There is a slight change in color, but I agree that a more
noticeable change would be nice, however, I have had no problem knowing
which is active because of the Minimize/Close icons do change color (active
with color or inactive no color).

- "Where's my program?" The first thing that I did after installing Vista
was to install the Office 2007 beta. Once the installation completed I
clicked the Start button (ball?) but didn't see anything new. So I clicked
All Programs... Not in that list either? After about 20 minutes I realized
that I had to scroll the program list. There is no way that this new Start
button is going to work for most people. The text in the list is tiny and
there STILL isn't enough room for all my programs. Move the "My Computer",
"Network", etc. list to the left side of the menu and let the right side get
big enough to hold more programs... and let the groups pop open to show more
lists.

[WillowTree:Rob] I agree that the scrolling menu is foreign and I cannot
find an option to make the menu fly-out rather than scrollable. That would
be a good option (if there is a way, please let me know ;-).

- There is ***NO*** shutdown button. Click start and you get a STANDBY
button and a LOCK this computer button. There is a tiny little button next
to these to get to the Shutdown, but I'm constantly missing it. I will
***NEVER*** lock my PC, nor use Standby. There is no way to modify these
buttons to the more useful Shutdown and Hibernate functions.

[WillowTree:Rob] Actually there is a Restart, Shutdown, etc option on the
start menu. Click the Arrow to the right of the Power Button/Lock Button.
You will see all the options. I really like this feature personally. You
can configure what the Power Button does in the Power Options in Control
Panel, just change the When I Push The Power Button option to Shutdown...

- New device detection. All you are told by Windows is that something was
found - NO indication at all if it's a Network device, soundcard,
mouse...etc. I've got a few items in my Device Mangler with the wrong
drivers installed because I didn't know what I was looking for.

[WillowTree:Rob] I didn't experience this. I found the install process
rocked. After logging in for the first time I went to Device Manager and
chose to update the devices that were not installed. I didn't have the
driver disk so I chose the Check Internet option and bang it found all the
drivers I needed. This ROCKED!!!!

- Aero... the new "glassy" interface. What is the point? First of all, being
able to see through the few pixels around the border of the window isn't
helpful at all. To make matters worse, everything under your window is
blurred beyond recognition. Also, the placement of the Minimize, Maximize
and Close buttons is just plain ugly. Looks like someone goofed. No border
above and a thick chunk of border below. They are also all different sizes
as well. UGLY.

[WillowTree:Rob] I have to TOTALLY disagree with you on this. This ROCKS!!!
You can see just enough to know what is under (it is not intended to read
your news paper through...). This and the new thumbnails when hovering over
the taskbar are awesome GUI enhancements.

- How many Network icons do we need in the Control Panel??? Network Center,
iSCSI, Firewall, Network Map, Network List, Network File & Printer
sharing... Why can't these all be within a SINGLE Network icon?

[WillowTree:Rob] I like things broken up so I can go directly to what I am
looking for rather than digging through interface after interface looking
for something. Not sure where you are coming from here... Also, if you
want one Icon, which to the new style and stay away from the classic view...

- Drive Mapping... How is it done? I don't have a menu bar on any of my
Explorer windows. Right clicking on a network resource doesn't give me the
Map Network Drive option.

[WillowTree:Rob] That is a good questions. I know I have seen it in there,
but you would think you could right click the folder and say map drive...

- The User Account Control is annoying. I can understand why it's there, but
the Windows Help doesn't tell you how to disable it.

[WillowTree:Rob] I agree, the user management needs some work still, built
then this is B2.

- You can't specify where you want your Gadgets. Gadgets have to be
installed on a bar, and they are top/left justified. Move them down and they
will just slide back up. On my XP system I have a nice clock that runs in
the bottom right corner of my desktop. There is no way to put the Vista
clock gadget into the lower right corner of my desktop.

[WillowTree:Rob] I had no problem placing my gadgets as far as stacking
order. My only complaint is that the right pain where gadgets are only
shows the vertical line on hover. I would like it to just be there...


....and some of the things I like about Vista...

- Gadgets. Definately an improvement from XP. They just need to get rid of
the requirement of installing them onto a "bar". I want to decide where to
put my gadgets, not have Windows stack them up in a pile.

[WillowTree:Rob] This would be nice.

- Operation seems smoother and more responsive than XP.

[WillowTree:Rob] I agree!

- Media Center has improved a bit. I don't have any TV tuners, so I can't
tell if recording has improved or if multiple sources are supported.

[WillowTree:Rob] I have not used these features yet.


....all in all, I don't see enough improvement to go through the trouble of
working through the poor user interface changes. I'd suggest that folks
stick with XP until Vista has been out a year or two.

[WillowTree:Rob] I love Vista. I have decided (we will see if I live to
regret this) to install it on my primary system (my laptop). I cannot
imagine going back to XP and Office 2k3. If Beta 3 is this stable I plan to
dog-food it throughout our organization (MS, let me know if there is an
official channel for this).

[WillowTree:Rob] All in all I really like the system, here are some of my
favorite improvements:

1) Thumbs when hovering over Taskbar items
2) The new "Personal Folders" implementation (My Docs, Downloads, etc)
3) The way the address bar works, it is a dynamic menu, even when connecting
to a networked non-Vista system (\\system\share)
4) IE 7 Plus and Media Player 11 also rock!

Heck, I even like the little image at the top of the start menu... ;-)

Things I don't like (not already mentioned above):

1) I would like to make the desktop icons smaller

Best Regards,

Robert J Collins MCSE, MCSE+I
Chairman, CEO, and President
WillowTree Software, Inc.
http://www.willowtreesoftware.com/
Cell: 208.353.6211
Fax: 208.672.1931
 
G

Geeter

Andreas Masur [MVP] wrote:
| On Mon, 29 May 2006 13:14:38 -0400, Geeter wrote:
|
|| No, but it sounds like you're believing the little macs and linux guano.
|
| Well...yet they seem to have a better understanding of user interfaces...
| ;)
|
| Ciao, Andreas

That's a joke, right? Because KDE and Gnome are not much more than bad
copies of the Windows Me GUI, and MacOSX is, well, for lack of a better
term, a monotone bore.

KDE
http://www.kde.org/screenshots/images/3.5/06-konqueror-mc.png

OSX
http://download.videolan.org/vlc/screenshots/20040110-osx-00.jpg

Vista
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/9/99/Windows_Gadgets.png

http://www.vistabase.co.uk/gallery/...e_Edition (Beta 2)&spgmPic=4&spgmFilters=#pic
 
N

Naseru

Hmm, I can only agree with 3 points:

The Hibernate/Lock/Standby options need to be customizable,
and, UAC is annoying (but it is improving... now only 3rd Parties need to
get the clue on simplicity),
and, Device detection bites.

For everything else, it's just you and the twelve other peeps who don't get
it. =o)

- naseru
 
A

AMDX2

Actually with UAC you do not have to use msconfig, but it is available to
shut off elsewhere. You just have to find it. I did, but did not turn it
off. I don't remember where it is, but I did find it by clicking to open
stuff, advanced etc and found it just fine.
 
Z

Zack Whittaker

There's a way in the registry, but all the MSCONFIG console does is gives
you a link to a command line which turns off UAC. There's only really one
way, but there all linked in to the same place :blush:)

--
Zack Whittaker
» ZackNET Enterprises: www.zacknet.co.uk
» MSBlog on ResDev: www.msblog.org
» Vista Knowledge Base: www.vistabase.co.uk
» This mailing is provided "as is" with no warranties, and confers no
rights. All opinions expressed are those of myself unless stated so, and not
of my employer, best friend, Ghandi, my mother or my cat. Glad we cleared
that up!

--: Original message follows :--
 
A

AMDX2

Zack Whittaker said:
There's a way in the registry, but all the MSCONFIG console does is gives
you a link to a command line which turns off UAC. There's only really one
way, but there all linked in to the same place :blush:)

--
Zack Whittaker
» ZackNET Enterprises: www.zacknet.co.uk
» MSBlog on ResDev: www.msblog.org
» Vista Knowledge Base: www.vistabase.co.uk
» This mailing is provided "as is" with no warranties, and confers no
rights. All opinions expressed are those of myself unless stated so, and
not
of my employer, best friend, Ghandi, my mother or my cat. Glad we cleared
that up!

--: Original message follows :--
Click to expand...


That's cool there's only one way, but all are linked to that lol. I don't
remember where I found it, do you or anyone know where in the UI this is at?
I was clicking to go places from the Welcome Center and eventually found it
somewhere in the system, not registry or msconfig, but somewhere dang it
lol.
 
Z

Zack Whittaker

There's a place in the Security Center - but I think it's only an option to
turn UAC back on if it's failed to work or it's turned off.

--
Zack Whittaker
» ZackNET Enterprises: www.zacknet.co.uk
» MSBlog on ResDev: www.msblog.org
» Vista Knowledge Base: www.vistabase.co.uk
» This mailing is provided "as is" with no warranties, and confers no
rights. All opinions expressed are those of myself unless stated so, and not
of my employer, best friend, Ghandi, my mother or my cat. Glad we cleared
that up!

--: Original message follows :--
 
G

Gerry Hickman

Geeter said:
You will pretty much be able to do everything on Vista. It's just that
Microsoft has arranged things so that the default is a "standard user"
rather than an Administrator.
Click to expand...

Are you sure about that? The most recent build I tested (5318?) had the
default user as an ADMINISTRATOR!
 
G

Gerry Hickman

Andre said:
Contextual menus is available anywhere in Explorer, certain areas such as
the toolbar does not support context menus though.
Click to expand...

For what it's worth, I found out you can do "Map Network Drive" from the
"My Computer" icon (assuming you have it on the desktop!)

As for the rest of Windows Explorer, I find it impossible to use, either
as a "user" or a tech guy. You said earlier that switching to "classic"
view means you have to use the breadcrumb trail. I have now found this but

1. It's not "classic"! Classic means folders...

2. It's impossible to work with the bread trail when you need to see
deep and complex folder structures and instantly know which ones have
sub-folders. I also found the icons representing folders/documents to be
too similar compared with the old Win2k system. The document is a bit
like a folder that open sideways. Horrible.

I showed it to a temp who works with us, and she just looked at it in
amazement and could find a file that was just a few subfolders down. On
Win2k she found it right away.
 
S

Steven Wabik

personally i do not like the device installer in vista. of course that was
on an old build. they could have fixed that by now. i hope. in the build i
used it had issues detecting the drivers for some of my devices unless i
told the pc were to find them.

the worst problem i had was that it did not support my wireless card at all.
i have a Compaq WL110 Wireless LAN Card. when i plugged it in to the pc card
slot of the pc that was running vista, the pc card did not even power up at
all. yet, it works on the same pc when it is running xp.
 
A

Andreas Masur [MVP]

Andreas Masur [MVP] wrote:
| On Mon, 29 May 2006 13:14:38 -0400, Geeter wrote:
|
|| No, but it sounds like you're believing the little macs and linux guano.
|
| Well...yet they seem to have a better understanding of user interfaces...
| ;)
|
| Ciao, Andreas

That's a joke, right? Because KDE and Gnome are not much more than bad
copies of the Windows Me GUI, and MacOSX is, well, for lack of a better
term, a monotone bore.
Click to expand...

No...it is not...granted, I was rather referring to Mac OS than Linux.
When I first looked at Windows Vista, the first thing that came to my mind
was simply: Hey...looks like Mac OS...only much worse. And to be
honest...it is just a clone of things Mac OS implements...in a better way.
Of course, they can't copy it one to one to make it not that obvious, but
from a user interface design standpoint, it is horrible. Sorry to say, but
it is what it is.

I agree though that many things a personal preference, however, leaving
that aside...there are still many things that just have been changed for
no reason but for a change.

I don't like a flashy system since I usually have my PC to get some work
done...and this I would like to do in an efficient manner. Your comparison
is off course a little bit useless since you are comparing different
things here. The graphics for Mac OS shows one application etc.

My point is simply the following: From a user experience and performance
both Linux and Mac OS do a far better job...why do I need a such a big
hardware just for running a simple operating system?

Sometimes less is more... ;)

Ciao, Andreas
 
A

Andreas Masur [MVP]

No...it is not...granted, I was rather referring to Mac OS than
Linux. When I first looked at Windows Vista, the first thing that came
to my mind was simply: Hey...looks like Mac OS...only much worse. And to
be honest...it is just a clone of things Mac OS implements...in a better
way.
Click to expand...

Small correction since I got lost in my own sentence...the above should
end with: in a different way.

Ciao, Andreas
 
S

Scott Glasgow

Andre Da Costa said:
- "Which window is the active one?" Windows are all the same color. There
is
no way to specify different colours for the active and inactive windows.
* Don't have an answer but I agree with you, this was not thought out I
guess. But why would you want to know Active window unless you are using
para-normal brain activity to select the window. I don't know about you
but I select my windows just fine any and you can use the Taskbar if its
giving you problems still.
Click to expand...

Actually, once I got use to the glass look, it's not that hard to see the
active window. Of course, I preface this by saying I may not be running the
same apps, but the default stuff, I know which one is focused. The glass
effect actually appears to be different on the focused window.
- "Where's my program?" The first thing that I did after installing Vista
[deleted]
*Uh, the Programs group for each application group is there, simply click
it and it will reveal the list. I sent in a suggestion for an arrow should
be beside the folder to indicate that it is expandable. You can also do a
search for the name of the app on the Start menu and it will show up, you
can even filter down to to the file name, hit enter and it will open.
Click to expand...

I totally agree on this and even commented on the feedback on this. I
haven't switched to classic view like I normally do with Windows...but
mainly because I want to experiment.
- There is ***NO*** shutdown button. Click start and you get a STANDBY
button and a LOCK this computer button. There is a tiny little button next
to these to get to the Shutdown, but I'm constantly missing it. I will
[deleted>
* I guess Microsoft is saying, you will hibernate your PC more with
Windows Vista instead shutting it down regularly. I definitely agree with
you though, this area needs more work, I hope they come with a better
layout. Either remove Lock and Standby, and make those the optional ones
instead of the default.
Click to expand...

I fully agree with this, but mainly because my ex-wife and son both
ocassionally use my desktop that I have Vista installed on, and they were
confused on how to get to switch user if I didn't lock and the time to
auto-lock didn't happen yet. When I first installed Vista, and hit that
area, I thought it would be configurable and you could reorder what was
shown large, and which were in the expandable part. I believe that is their
intention and perhaps it is possible now, but I haven't found it.
- New device detection. All you are told by Windows is that something was
found - NO indication at all if it's a Network device, soundcard,
mouse...etc. I've got a few items in my Device Mangler with the wrong
drivers installed because I didn't know what I was looking for.
* Detected my Motorola E398 phone, but that I need a driver from the
manuafacturer. A lovely floating dialog popped up, which was nice.
Click to expand...

Every device I have had so far was detected and I've been told the type of
device...which surprised me since Windows XP couldn't identity the type on
one of my devices.
and Close buttons is just plain ugly. Looks like someone goofed. No border
above and a thick chunk of border below. They are also all different sizes
as well. UGLY.
[deleted]
Click to expand...
[previous reply deleted]

I see a border above the min/max/close area on mine. The different sizes
don't really both me since the space would be unused either way.

I'm still mixed on Vista right now, but it is a beta, which actually seems
to run a lot better than some previous Windows beta versions (prior to
Vista).

I will say that I am more impressed with Microsoft these days to provide
beta bits of their different products, even though they will catch flack for
it.
 
S

Scott Glasgow

I forgot to say you can drag your sidebar gadgets anywhere on the
desktop.....forgot who posted that they wished they could place a gadget
anywhere on the desktop...although they might have meant on the taskbar area
which Andre already replied to, which I agree...it would be way too small.
Besides, since the original poster mentioned the clock, I actually like the
clock in Vista as in compared to XP.

[deleted]
 
D

Dustin Harper

I'd have to agree about the clock. Much better. I really like the Sidebar
feature. I downloaded the Desktop Sidebar for XP and used it a lot. Very
valuable feature. You can have your RSS feeds, clock, stocks, moon phases,
whatever on there. It's great.

Dustin Harper
 

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