D
Danny
2001 was the year XP was released to much anticipation from the world of
technology. Here was Windows NT 5.1 finally bringing the stability and
robust performance of Windows 2000 and its predecessors to the home user.
The year is now 2007 and Microsoft are preparing to unveil its official
sequel, as it were, in Windows Vista. It will become fully available next
month, but having had a very lengthy preview of it, here are the strengths
and weaknesses which instantly spring out at you:
Strengths:
It looks fantastic. Yes, we all thought XP's basic theme was more 'Duplo'
than 'Designer', and Microsoft have clearly put a grandiose amount of effort
into developing a sophisticated, lean, and frankly sexy looking interface
for Vista. It is an incredibly pleasant operating system to look at, with
glamorous shadows and an overall sleek feel to it. This is a very nice
interface to look at.
Improved boot speed. It's by no means going at light-speed, but there is
definitely a noticeable reduction in boot time.
Feature-packed. This is without doubt the most endowed OS ever conceived. It
has everything and more.
Program menu scrolling. With the mousewheel. In XP to scroll the programs
menu one has to hover the cursor over the scroll bar at the top or bottom of
the menu. In Vista, it is fully mouse scrollable which is a big improvement.
You can now navigate to further down options almost instantly.
Information. You are simply TOLD more - more data when transferring files,
more information about space. It just keeps you far more informed of what is
going on in your PC.
Security: With the addition of advanced new security features designed to
shore up potential holes, and the User Account Control not to mention
Windows Defender; this is a very safe environment for computing.
Weaknesses:
Drivers. It goes without saving that at this early stage, there is a stark
lack of drivers for the OS. And plenty of the ones available are distinctly
flaky or poor, or even both.
Windows Mail. MS have replaced the stalwart and reliable Outlook Express
with a new email client. And, to put it mildly, it's atrocious. It feels
like an early beta, given a total lack of features and all round buggy
feeling. I feel this program deserves a fair bit of criticism all of its own
so here we are:
It is incredibly slow to load. Microsoft felt the bizarre desire
to dispense with OE .dbx files for storage, and replace them with individual
..eml files. So now instead of a neat single chunk large file for your inbox,
for example, you are blessed with thousands of crudely stored individual
email files. This causes the program to load slower than a ZX81.
There is no Windows Address Book/Contacts pane. It is replaced
by a 'contacts' button which brings up a messy looking window with a list of
the contacts you have (import these from WAB). To send an email involves a
right click on your choice then a choice of 'send email', as opposed to a
simple double click like in OE.
There is no way to stop the program automatically entering your inbox on
opening. Surely it's up to you if you want to go there straight off?
Whatever folder you end up in, the program automatically goes to
the first unread message and previews it. Again, you should have the choice.
As you can tell, there's a lot of work to be done to Windows Mail before it's
even vaguely feasible.
No 'up' button in Explorer. This is beyond ludicrous; going up a level now
involves knowing exactly where you are and choosing the next folder level up
in the address bar. I'd rather just press 'up' and always know I'm going up
a level no matter where I am than sit baffled choosing between folders.
Programs menu looks messy. Basically instead of having a tree of folders in
the programs menu, whereby you find your item, and let it fold out and allow
you to choose the exe it now has a group of brown explorer folders, which
when clicked on, collapse to reveal their contents. In the same column.
Might not sound much, but it just doesn't look right.
Add/remove in the control panel is gone, replaced by a really woeful
'programs' applet which seems to have taken all the versatility of
add/remove and thrown it in the bin.
A small quibble is the Play.com PS2/USB adaptor no longer works. At all.
This won't affect everyone, but for those who swear by this device, the lack
of its functionality almost renders the OS useless.
User Account Control. Until you figure out how to disable this, it's
security gone mad. Everything you do requires permission, and you have to
authorise it. While this is happening the whole screen darkens in a
foreboding manner. Having this kind of restriction would render the system
truly impotent. Thank goodness it can be disabled.
My Documents no longer exists, replaced by a strange hybrid of folders which
are all apparently separate. I can see no advantage in it.
The data transfer wizard (Or whatever it's called) is hopeless. It's
extremely hard to figure out exactly what you are transferring, and even
harder to make it transfer what you want. I tried to hand over my email
files, and it did indeed back up the identity. But the restoration didn't
work and I was left with no email at all to begin with. I had to manually
import the DBX files. Furthermore it point blank refused to not transfer My
Documents.
Plenty of programs are (predictably) not compatible with Vista, meaning if
you want to upgrade, you have to establish what works and what doesn't
before you make the change. In many cases it's a pointless upgrade to make.
One regularly receives a simple dialogue informing us the robust and
reliable firewall we've used for years will not work on this OS. And plenty
of examples of these incompatibilities exist. It surely matters not that it's
an 'accepted drawback of a new OS' - the fact remains it's simply not
practical for XP users with plenty of applications they consistently use to
upgrade if half of them will not work any longer.
Nvidia's control panel is shambolic - I don't strictly blame MS for this,
but it is nevertheless true that the new interface for the Vista drivers is
beyond terrible. Plus overclocking does not work. At all.
Opening an image takes a quite bizarre amount of time. Nothing occurs, then
20 seconds later it opens. Which invariably leads to the user believing the
first double click did not register, thus repeating it, then finding 2
copies open in quick succession 20 seconds later.
BSOD's are still in evidence. You would have thought after all this time,
12+ years, Microsoft would have figured out how to stabilise the OS beyond
being afflicted by the dreaded blue screen. Regrettably not. A flaky driver,
app or whatever can still easily bring the environment to its knees. There
really has to be a method of separating the operating environment from the
driver and app one.
Erroneous activity. There are now so many modules running all over the
place, that one regularly witnesses inexplicable activity dominating the
resources. Why on earth do MS feel the need to have so many processes
running at once?
Defrag contains no information at all - despite the strides made in other
areas, for some reason defrag now tells the user absolutely nothing about
what it is doing.
Ok, that's enough for now. I've said my piece, and I'm sure the pro-MS/Vista
folk will angrily oppose this post, and those disillusioned with it may
agree with some of it.
Also feel free to correct me if I have said anything outright incorrect.
This is just my opinion.
Regards all.
technology. Here was Windows NT 5.1 finally bringing the stability and
robust performance of Windows 2000 and its predecessors to the home user.
The year is now 2007 and Microsoft are preparing to unveil its official
sequel, as it were, in Windows Vista. It will become fully available next
month, but having had a very lengthy preview of it, here are the strengths
and weaknesses which instantly spring out at you:
Strengths:
It looks fantastic. Yes, we all thought XP's basic theme was more 'Duplo'
than 'Designer', and Microsoft have clearly put a grandiose amount of effort
into developing a sophisticated, lean, and frankly sexy looking interface
for Vista. It is an incredibly pleasant operating system to look at, with
glamorous shadows and an overall sleek feel to it. This is a very nice
interface to look at.
Improved boot speed. It's by no means going at light-speed, but there is
definitely a noticeable reduction in boot time.
Feature-packed. This is without doubt the most endowed OS ever conceived. It
has everything and more.
Program menu scrolling. With the mousewheel. In XP to scroll the programs
menu one has to hover the cursor over the scroll bar at the top or bottom of
the menu. In Vista, it is fully mouse scrollable which is a big improvement.
You can now navigate to further down options almost instantly.
Information. You are simply TOLD more - more data when transferring files,
more information about space. It just keeps you far more informed of what is
going on in your PC.
Security: With the addition of advanced new security features designed to
shore up potential holes, and the User Account Control not to mention
Windows Defender; this is a very safe environment for computing.
Weaknesses:
Drivers. It goes without saving that at this early stage, there is a stark
lack of drivers for the OS. And plenty of the ones available are distinctly
flaky or poor, or even both.
Windows Mail. MS have replaced the stalwart and reliable Outlook Express
with a new email client. And, to put it mildly, it's atrocious. It feels
like an early beta, given a total lack of features and all round buggy
feeling. I feel this program deserves a fair bit of criticism all of its own
so here we are:
It is incredibly slow to load. Microsoft felt the bizarre desire
to dispense with OE .dbx files for storage, and replace them with individual
..eml files. So now instead of a neat single chunk large file for your inbox,
for example, you are blessed with thousands of crudely stored individual
email files. This causes the program to load slower than a ZX81.
There is no Windows Address Book/Contacts pane. It is replaced
by a 'contacts' button which brings up a messy looking window with a list of
the contacts you have (import these from WAB). To send an email involves a
right click on your choice then a choice of 'send email', as opposed to a
simple double click like in OE.
There is no way to stop the program automatically entering your inbox on
opening. Surely it's up to you if you want to go there straight off?
Whatever folder you end up in, the program automatically goes to
the first unread message and previews it. Again, you should have the choice.
As you can tell, there's a lot of work to be done to Windows Mail before it's
even vaguely feasible.
No 'up' button in Explorer. This is beyond ludicrous; going up a level now
involves knowing exactly where you are and choosing the next folder level up
in the address bar. I'd rather just press 'up' and always know I'm going up
a level no matter where I am than sit baffled choosing between folders.
Programs menu looks messy. Basically instead of having a tree of folders in
the programs menu, whereby you find your item, and let it fold out and allow
you to choose the exe it now has a group of brown explorer folders, which
when clicked on, collapse to reveal their contents. In the same column.
Might not sound much, but it just doesn't look right.
Add/remove in the control panel is gone, replaced by a really woeful
'programs' applet which seems to have taken all the versatility of
add/remove and thrown it in the bin.
A small quibble is the Play.com PS2/USB adaptor no longer works. At all.
This won't affect everyone, but for those who swear by this device, the lack
of its functionality almost renders the OS useless.
User Account Control. Until you figure out how to disable this, it's
security gone mad. Everything you do requires permission, and you have to
authorise it. While this is happening the whole screen darkens in a
foreboding manner. Having this kind of restriction would render the system
truly impotent. Thank goodness it can be disabled.
My Documents no longer exists, replaced by a strange hybrid of folders which
are all apparently separate. I can see no advantage in it.
The data transfer wizard (Or whatever it's called) is hopeless. It's
extremely hard to figure out exactly what you are transferring, and even
harder to make it transfer what you want. I tried to hand over my email
files, and it did indeed back up the identity. But the restoration didn't
work and I was left with no email at all to begin with. I had to manually
import the DBX files. Furthermore it point blank refused to not transfer My
Documents.
Plenty of programs are (predictably) not compatible with Vista, meaning if
you want to upgrade, you have to establish what works and what doesn't
before you make the change. In many cases it's a pointless upgrade to make.
One regularly receives a simple dialogue informing us the robust and
reliable firewall we've used for years will not work on this OS. And plenty
of examples of these incompatibilities exist. It surely matters not that it's
an 'accepted drawback of a new OS' - the fact remains it's simply not
practical for XP users with plenty of applications they consistently use to
upgrade if half of them will not work any longer.
Nvidia's control panel is shambolic - I don't strictly blame MS for this,
but it is nevertheless true that the new interface for the Vista drivers is
beyond terrible. Plus overclocking does not work. At all.
Opening an image takes a quite bizarre amount of time. Nothing occurs, then
20 seconds later it opens. Which invariably leads to the user believing the
first double click did not register, thus repeating it, then finding 2
copies open in quick succession 20 seconds later.
BSOD's are still in evidence. You would have thought after all this time,
12+ years, Microsoft would have figured out how to stabilise the OS beyond
being afflicted by the dreaded blue screen. Regrettably not. A flaky driver,
app or whatever can still easily bring the environment to its knees. There
really has to be a method of separating the operating environment from the
driver and app one.
Erroneous activity. There are now so many modules running all over the
place, that one regularly witnesses inexplicable activity dominating the
resources. Why on earth do MS feel the need to have so many processes
running at once?
Defrag contains no information at all - despite the strides made in other
areas, for some reason defrag now tells the user absolutely nothing about
what it is doing.
Ok, that's enough for now. I've said my piece, and I'm sure the pro-MS/Vista
folk will angrily oppose this post, and those disillusioned with it may
agree with some of it.
Also feel free to correct me if I have said anything outright incorrect.
This is just my opinion.
Regards all.
