Our Impressions
Immediately upon trying to install Vista, it's obvious Microsoft has been making some long-awaited changes for the installation procedure. The last of the console view for the installer is gone, and it has been replaced by an entirely graphical process. This includes the recovery console, and while it's still not a walk in the park, it isn't so intimidating any more. More importantly though, Vista is now USB-aware, so the days of the floppy disk are now truly limited, as drivers can be loaded off of USB devices such as flash drives. We can't state enough just how happy this makes us. The installation procedure is otherwise nearly the same as XP: it asks a few fewer questions, and doesn't spend the entire time boasting about its features (though that may change at release), so installation overall is not exceedingly different from XP.
Microsoft has also included a basic memory testing utility as both a recovery and advanced startup option. This can either be taken in a positive light or negative light, depending on whether you're happy that you may no longer need external utilities like MemTest86, or troubled that bad memory is now so common that Microsoft is bothering to include a memory testing utility. The utility seems sound enough; on the surface it seems a workable replacement for MemTest86, but as we don't have any bad DIMMs at the moment to test with it, an actual capability test will need to wait. At least until we break something.
Once installed, our fresh copy of Vista Ultimate Edition x86 ate up 10GB of hard drive space, and in the out-of-the-box configuration was using approximately 512MB of RAM. Running Vista x64 while trying to get real work done can push memory usage up to the capacity of physical memory in configurations we tested (though we never tested with more than 2GB). The actual RAM usage should drop a good deal once Vista is in shipping condition, as many debugging features are still in the code for this beta of Vista. XP 64-bit edition was eating a similar amount of memory when it was in beta, and dropped by over 100MB for its final release, so we'd expect something similar with Vista.
In order to get a good feel for Vista for writing this, we "dogfooded" (Microsoft's new term for beta testing) this for a week, and our reactions are overall mixed. As we previously mentioned, some of the UI changes that have replaced the traditional menus are just very hard to get used to. It's not so much that these changes represent a significant shift in how Windows operates, but rather it's that a lot of things have been moved, combined into buttons, etc. For most of these layout changes, there's little that directly improves Windows or its productivity for most users; people will adapt over time, and these changes essentially make more or less sense depending on how much you like the current XP interface.
We've managed to adapt to these changes for the most part, but it's the kind of paradigm shift not everyone will be ready for, and since the old menu structure is still available that's okay. At the end of the day most users will end up using Windows Vista the exact same way they ended up using XP. The real productivity features powered by Aero potentially have the most impact for changing how users work, such as giving up Alt+Tabbing for Flip3D, but as we mentioned earlier that's not going to happen with the current incarnation of Flip3D: it's not effective enough to replace Alt+Tabbing, let alone the improved Alt+Tabbing of Vista.
To Microsoft's credit, there were to places where we did end up changing our habits a bit thanks to Vista. The first is with the inclusion of a much smarter searching system that can use the search index to instantly pull up results and mix in partial results (very similar to Tiger's Spotlight feature), searching isn't nearly as painful as it is with XP. Given the current implementation of this quick search and indexing service however, there's still some work to be done. By default only the start menu and a user's home directory are indexed, so searching from anywhere else loses the instant results and becomes a normal search. It's also flat-out buggy at this point; quick searching from our home folder for a specific image didn't work, but it did inside of the pictures folder of our home folder.
IE7+ has also picked up a major overhaul, both in terms of new features (sandbox mode, anti-phishing filters, etc.) and its interface. The main thing here is that IE finally has tabbed browsing, and in fact this is one of the few things at this point that really shines compared to Safari/Firefox. For IE's tabs, a new view has been added to help manage tabs by showing a scaled down version of all open tabs at once, effectively creating an Exposé for tabs. It's hard to put in words, but it's similar to looking at a folder full of pictures using the thumbnail view. This is a very useful feature that we're glad to see in IE and it undoubtedly makes it easier to use than any other tabbed browser.
The implementation of Gadgets (aka widgets) also gets a nod, even though Microsoft is very late to this particular party. If you're looking for something innovative in the field of widgets here, you're going to be disappointed, but there's little to be said about these kinds of utilities that hasn't already been said. Users accustomed to Tiger's widgets will be happy to know that these widgets are active all the time and do not have the refresh delay that Tiger's do, at the cost of memory and CPU usage.
Immediately upon trying to install Vista, it's obvious Microsoft has been making some long-awaited changes for the installation procedure. The last of the console view for the installer is gone, and it has been replaced by an entirely graphical process. This includes the recovery console, and while it's still not a walk in the park, it isn't so intimidating any more. More importantly though, Vista is now USB-aware, so the days of the floppy disk are now truly limited, as drivers can be loaded off of USB devices such as flash drives. We can't state enough just how happy this makes us. The installation procedure is otherwise nearly the same as XP: it asks a few fewer questions, and doesn't spend the entire time boasting about its features (though that may change at release), so installation overall is not exceedingly different from XP.
Microsoft has also included a basic memory testing utility as both a recovery and advanced startup option. This can either be taken in a positive light or negative light, depending on whether you're happy that you may no longer need external utilities like MemTest86, or troubled that bad memory is now so common that Microsoft is bothering to include a memory testing utility. The utility seems sound enough; on the surface it seems a workable replacement for MemTest86, but as we don't have any bad DIMMs at the moment to test with it, an actual capability test will need to wait. At least until we break something.
Once installed, our fresh copy of Vista Ultimate Edition x86 ate up 10GB of hard drive space, and in the out-of-the-box configuration was using approximately 512MB of RAM. Running Vista x64 while trying to get real work done can push memory usage up to the capacity of physical memory in configurations we tested (though we never tested with more than 2GB). The actual RAM usage should drop a good deal once Vista is in shipping condition, as many debugging features are still in the code for this beta of Vista. XP 64-bit edition was eating a similar amount of memory when it was in beta, and dropped by over 100MB for its final release, so we'd expect something similar with Vista.
In order to get a good feel for Vista for writing this, we "dogfooded" (Microsoft's new term for beta testing) this for a week, and our reactions are overall mixed. As we previously mentioned, some of the UI changes that have replaced the traditional menus are just very hard to get used to. It's not so much that these changes represent a significant shift in how Windows operates, but rather it's that a lot of things have been moved, combined into buttons, etc. For most of these layout changes, there's little that directly improves Windows or its productivity for most users; people will adapt over time, and these changes essentially make more or less sense depending on how much you like the current XP interface.
We've managed to adapt to these changes for the most part, but it's the kind of paradigm shift not everyone will be ready for, and since the old menu structure is still available that's okay. At the end of the day most users will end up using Windows Vista the exact same way they ended up using XP. The real productivity features powered by Aero potentially have the most impact for changing how users work, such as giving up Alt+Tabbing for Flip3D, but as we mentioned earlier that's not going to happen with the current incarnation of Flip3D: it's not effective enough to replace Alt+Tabbing, let alone the improved Alt+Tabbing of Vista.
To Microsoft's credit, there were to places where we did end up changing our habits a bit thanks to Vista. The first is with the inclusion of a much smarter searching system that can use the search index to instantly pull up results and mix in partial results (very similar to Tiger's Spotlight feature), searching isn't nearly as painful as it is with XP. Given the current implementation of this quick search and indexing service however, there's still some work to be done. By default only the start menu and a user's home directory are indexed, so searching from anywhere else loses the instant results and becomes a normal search. It's also flat-out buggy at this point; quick searching from our home folder for a specific image didn't work, but it did inside of the pictures folder of our home folder.
IE7+ has also picked up a major overhaul, both in terms of new features (sandbox mode, anti-phishing filters, etc.) and its interface. The main thing here is that IE finally has tabbed browsing, and in fact this is one of the few things at this point that really shines compared to Safari/Firefox. For IE's tabs, a new view has been added to help manage tabs by showing a scaled down version of all open tabs at once, effectively creating an Exposé for tabs. It's hard to put in words, but it's similar to looking at a folder full of pictures using the thumbnail view. This is a very useful feature that we're glad to see in IE and it undoubtedly makes it easier to use than any other tabbed browser.
The implementation of Gadgets (aka widgets) also gets a nod, even though Microsoft is very late to this particular party. If you're looking for something innovative in the field of widgets here, you're going to be disappointed, but there's little to be said about these kinds of utilities that hasn't already been said. Users accustomed to Tiger's widgets will be happy to know that these widgets are active all the time and do not have the refresh delay that Tiger's do, at the cost of memory and CPU usage.
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dev0lution - Friday, June 16, 2006 - link
I'd happily boot into Vista everyday if all of my hardware devices would work. Not MS's fault, but rather my fault for buying a smaller manufacturer's product who has yet to post even beta drivers.In combination with Office 207 Beta2 and IE 7, Vista x86 has run fine and rather stable for me. It does tend to eat up a bit of memory, but I should probably add another GB anyhow. If I could just solve a couple app related problems and get Media Center (and MC remote) to change the channel on my set top box, I wouldn't be running from my MCE disk much at all anymore.
I kind of like the new layout and explorer...
RogueSpear - Friday, June 16, 2006 - link
I've had been using Vista on one of my computers until shortly after the Beta 2 was released for public consumption. Once I saw that there was no appreciable improvements in that release, I finally decided to revert back to the relative comfort and superior performance of XP. First off, I have nightmares when I think of the mass confusion that will ensue among the mass of computer neophytes that are just now getting over the adjustment from moving off of 98/ME to XP. These will be trying days for help desk staff and even those are the "computer guy" in their family.More importantly, changes that are allegedly substantial, seem to me more cosmetic than anything. Yes, I realize that there are a lot of serious changes under the hood, but the benefits you can see and touch appear very superficial at best. This seems like an extreme makeover in an attempt to get people signed up for even more pervasive and hideous DRM. I know I'm living in the past, but I'll always be nostalgic for the days when my computer was actually my computer and the software/media I paid for were mine to use as I saw fit.
Pirks - Friday, June 16, 2006 - link
I noticed this sentence: "As currently implemented, UAC surpasses Tiger's security features by giving more information about what application is requesting privilege escalation" Could you please elaborate a little on what "more information" exactly Vista provides in UAC dialogs that Tiger does NOT provide?From my experience Tiger gives the same information, I probably misunderstood you on that, could you please explain in more detail?
johnsonx - Friday, June 16, 2006 - link
Ok, these two sentences seem contradictory. First you say you don't know if 32-bit and 64-bit versions will come on the same disc with an installer that can pick correctly, then in the next sentence you say the installer will pick based on product key because both versions will use the same install media.
So which is it, or there there something I'm not getting?
Ryan Smith - Friday, June 16, 2006 - link
There's something you're not getting. A disc can install any variation of Vista(e.g. 1 disc can install Home Basic x86, Home Premium x86, Ultimate x86, etc); it can only install that bit-version of Vista however.DerekWilson - Friday, June 16, 2006 - link
it is difficult to say ... i think three different editors mucked around with that sentence :-)to try a different angle, both of these are true statements:
1) the x86 disk can install any x86 version of vista
2) the x64 disk can install any x64 version of vista
dhei - Friday, June 16, 2006 - link
When you can, do a test to see how well they redid it please. Someone told me this would be noticable on those with broadband easily, not just LAN or network tests. Im really intrested in this aspect, though not sure how to really test it.Did you try a LAN benchmark vs winxp to see if any diffrence?
Ryan Smith - Friday, June 16, 2006 - link
We did not do that, it was already a 12k word article + the time to run the benchmarks we did use. We'll be taking a much heavier look at performance once we have a final version of Vista to look at.Pirks - Friday, June 16, 2006 - link
and read this while you're at it:http://developer.apple.com/internet/security/secur...">http://developer.apple.com/internet/security/secur...
You can minimize the risk of a network service being used to attack your machine by using the firewall built into Mac OS X. Called ipfw, it can prevent potential attackers from reaching these services. As of Mac OS X 10.2, Apple has included a simple GUI for configuring ipfw. The GUI is good for adding simple rules to your machine; more complex rules will require you to use either the command line tools for manipulating the firewall, or a third-party GUI that has more features.
Ryan, do you know what BSD ipfw is? It blows any XP firewall to ashes, Vista is only pathetic attempt to get to its level (well hopefully MS will get something similar in Vista, I really hope they do)
Also read this: http://personalpages.tds.net/~brian_hill/brickhous...">http://personalpages.tds.net/~brian_hill/brickhous...
That's another GUI to configure ipfw in OSX.
Otherwise an excellent article, I'm impatiently wait for your review of the final Vista release, but please don't do such stupid mistakes again, Mac boys will hack and slash you for that ;-)
"it's time for a full featured firewall for Windows and Mac OS X alike, and only the former has it" - what a funny lie :-) Please read about OSX ipfw (I gave you a couple of links) and fix it ASAP. Thanks.
Ryan Smith - Friday, June 16, 2006 - link
I'm aware of IPFW, and what it can do(and boy is it nice!). But this is a competition among what the two OS's can do on their own, without significant intervention from the user. Out of the box, Vista's firewall is a full-featured firewall that can block inbound and outbound connections. Tiger's firewall can't do the latter, and in the age of spyware(and as you saw in our spyware test), it's sometimes the last thing keeping spyware and other malware from breaking out.Tiger may not have significant malware problems at this point, but there's no good reason why it(and more so Leopard) shouldn't have outbound protection too.