VISTA general impression

[Chris Game]

Thanks Jimmy.. this is exactly what I was looking for; a real run
down on just what the added functionality is.

Yes, surprising that it took a couple of days for someone who knew
what they were talking about to come along...

Or, to put it another way, interesting that MSFT hasn't sold us the
new features yet, at least to the extent that we could easily put up
the list.

 

[Intel Inside]

"Mac can already do 3d icons"
I'm surprised that this has not been Vistaed (ie. added to Vista)

 

[Jimmy Brush]

I don't know about the studies.

MS has definately de-emphasized virtual folders. They used to be prominent
parts of the shell, ie Documents used to be a virtual folder that showed all
documents on the system, same thing with Pictures, Music, etc, but after
feedback and studies or whatever it is that MS does they decided to keep the
regular folders.

I wouldn't call them "useless" per se, but I do think that they would be
complicated if made a main part of the UI, at least right now.

I like it.

- JB

Vista Support FAQ
http://www.jimmah.com/vista/

 

[Chris Game]

I will probably wait until the first SP for VISTA arrives to
invest in it.

2008, 2009 or 2010?

 

[Bernie]

Good point Chris. It is amusing to me that the OP had this question that
very few of us seem to have really researched. I've been exploring Vista
for a few weeks and kind of had the question at the back of my mind but
it hadn't occurred to me to Google "Vista new features" or anything like
that. I'd just relied on the beta scenarios on the MS site and seeing
what came up as I tinkered.

 

[Bernie]

The initial trickiness for me is that I want to know where all my data
files are for backup purposes. I tend to make My Documents point to a
separate partition if not a separate drive entirely. When I see a
virtual folder I wonder where the files actually are and what disk space
is taken up by the virtual folder. I know the virtual folder isn't a
real folder but the data that references the files (XML?) must be held
somewhere.

I haven't really looked into but I've been a tech support guy and a
developer for many years and if the above looks confused for me it
doesn't surprise me if user focus groups have given it the thumbs down.

 

[Colin Barnhorst]

Back around build 5270 virtual folders were everywhere.

 

[Fernando]

Hi Colin,
Yes, MS recommends to not use the OS as admin, but by default all users
created at install time are admin users on XP, so they miss the point
again. Anyway, as mgm, I use my XP box as limited user and had no
problems with virus, trojans, spyware, etc.

Colin Barnhorst escribió:

 

[Alan Simpson]

The smart thing would be for MS to change the word "Search" to "View" or
some other synonym for the indexed searches. Then put back in an old search
companion type thing and call that one Search. That way people wouldn't be
so quick to presume that Search is just a messed-up version of ye olde
Search Companion.

 

[Chris Game]

The notion of a filesystem as a "single
searchable object" is just too new.

What, you're saying all files should be in the root folder and we
search for what we want? Why these Users, Program Files folders
then? Why Application Data sperate from Documents?

 

[Alan Simpson]

If you're asking me, of course I'm not saying that. You should still do
things exactly as you always have been. The Search Index doesn't change any
of that. It simply allows you to treat things "as though" they were all in
one big file store. It's all virtual. You can get to any file, folder, or
message without navigation. Just type the keyword(s) and click the thing you
want. Just because the folders are there doesn't mean you should be spending
all your time navigating around through folders. Especially if you have tens
of thousands of files in hundreds of folders to content with.

Leave everything where it is. Just dump the constant navigation.

 

[Jimmy Brush]

I think what Alan's getting at is that the hierarchial filesystem in today's
world is no longer good enough FOR the purpose of classification and
organization.

That doesn't mean it's not USEFUL - it is very useful. The current
filesystem model is great for well-defined containers and well-defined files
that belong to one, and only one, container.

It works great, as you pointed out, for separating data files from
executable files. In fact, I can't think of a good permissions model that is
NOT based on a hierarchial filesystem.

However, things get tricky when the user has hundrends of thousands to
millions of data files. No longer can you categorize a file into a single
folder and have any expectancy of easily finding that one specific file by
browsing the filesystem tree.

The need arises for files to belong to more than one folder (in essense; I
am of course talking about metadata, or tagging files with as much info
about them as possible).

In this model, files are still part of a low-level hierarchial file system
based, which is based primarily on the need for security permissions, so
things are organized by who should have access to them.

However, once you get into a part of the filesystem that contains data
files, it is much more efficient to be able to go into "metadata mode" and
browse files by metadata, instead of forcing the users to use a
no-longer-useful "folders and files" abstraction.

I was RELLY looking forward to seeing MS implement this, and I was very
disappointed when they dumped it . We're left with just a small fraction
of the UI that would have been.

- JB

Vista Support FAQ
http://www.jimmah.com/vista/

 

[Bernie]

Thank you very much Jimmy for finally getting through to me what the
whole search thing was all about.

I suspect a huge reason for dropping it is that it wasn't a market led
improvement. I suspect I am not alone in not knowing what it was all
about and therefore not caring much about it. If the majority of their
market isn't savvy with it then they are not going to demand it.

 

[Chris Game]

I think what Alan's getting at is that the hierarchial filesystem
in today's world is no longer good enough FOR the purpose of
classification and organization.

Ah! Is that what he was getting at!

[...]

However, things get tricky when the user has hundrends of
thousands to millions of data files. No longer can you categorize
a file into a single folder and have any expectancy of easily
finding that one specific file by browsing the filesystem tree.

That's the problem Yahoo! Desktop Search - and other such
applications - was designed to solve.

The need arises for files to belong to more than one folder (in
essense; I am of course talking about metadata, or tagging files
with as much info about them as possible).

In this model, files are still part of a low-level hierarchial
file system based, which is based primarily on the need for
security permissions, so things are organized by who should have
access to them.

However, once you get into a part of the filesystem that contains
data files, it is much more efficient to be able to go into
"metadata mode" and browse files by metadata, instead of forcing
the users to use a no-longer-useful "folders and files"
abstraction.

Well of course we're used to that in browsing things like images,
the new Windows Photo Gallery allows one to add tags for exactly
that purpose. They don't carry over to the file browser (Explorer or
whatever it's called in vista) however.

So why not have tags for documents, and other user generated data
files? That would be much more useful than this 'group by stack'
business. How is that supposed to work?

 

[Chris Game]

Leave everything where it is. Just dump the constant navigation.

Unfortunately I have many files with the same filename in different
folders. The search results box isn't very clear as to which is
which. I foresee problems!

 

[Bernie]

I think that is where the metadata comes in.

Unfortunately I have many files with the same filename in different
folders. The search results box isn't very clear as to which is
which. I foresee problems!

 

[Alan Simpson]

It hasn't been dropped at all. It's still there and workin' great.

I think what Alan's getting at is that the hierarchial filesystem
in today's world is no longer good enough FOR the purpose of
classification and organization.

Ah! Is that what he was getting at!

[...]

However, things get tricky when the user has hundrends of
thousands to millions of data files. No longer can you categorize
a file into a single folder and have any expectancy of easily
finding that one specific file by browsing the filesystem tree.

That's the problem Yahoo! Desktop Search - and other such
applications - was designed to solve.

The need arises for files to belong to more than one folder (in
essense; I am of course talking about metadata, or tagging files
with as much info about them as possible).

In this model, files are still part of a low-level hierarchial
file system based, which is based primarily on the need for
security permissions, so things are organized by who should have
access to them.

However, once you get into a part of the filesystem that contains
data files, it is much more efficient to be able to go into
"metadata mode" and browse files by metadata, instead of forcing
the users to use a no-longer-useful "folders and files"
abstraction.

Well of course we're used to that in browsing things like images,
the new Windows Photo Gallery allows one to add tags for exactly
that purpose. They don't carry over to the file browser (Explorer or
whatever it's called in vista) however.

So why not have tags for documents, and other user generated data
files? That would be much more useful than this 'group by stack'
business. How is that supposed to work?

 

[Alan Simpson]

Unfortunately I have many files with the same filename in different

folders. The search results box isn't very clear as to which is
which. I foresee problems!

Filename is almost as irrelevant as location. The index includes metadata
and file contents. Think of it as Google for all your local files. There are
billions of pages named index.htm on the Web. That doesn't prevent you from
finding them with Google.

 

[Bernie]

Well I copyrighted my index.htm a long time ago. You mean there are
millions of violators out there just waiting to be sued?

 

[Alan Simpson]

Billions. I think you're gonna be very rich.

Well I copyrighted my index.htm a long time ago. You mean there are
millions of violators out there just waiting to be sued?