The First Look
While Vista has numerous new features Microsoft is hoping will entice users to upgrade, the most immediate and visible change is the new Aero interface that will be the preferred look for Vista. Since Microsoft is making a big deal of it both for reasons of eye-candy (whether we like to admit to it or not, eye-candy sells) and productivity allowed by using GPU-acceleration, this is where we will start our look.
One disadvantage of Microsoft's long cycle time between releasing XP and Vista is that their main competition in the consumer space, Apple, has had the chance to release several OS revisions in between the releases of XP and Vista, and will likely release one more before Vista ships. Given this lead, it shouldn't come as a shock that certain elements of Aero/Vista end up looking like Mac OS X, and while Microsoft isn't going to admit to it any time soon, we're not going to ignore it. Mac OS X implemented several good ideas both in terms of eye-candy and usability/productivity, so we're certainly not going to complain if Microsoft has borrowed some of these ideas for Aero. However, we expect that they'll try to improve on the design of Aero over Mac OS X as well.
In general, Microsoft has ditched the traditional Windows blue for a white color that wouldn't be out of place in Mac OS X. As with colors in XP, this is all user-configurable, and several different template colors are included, but the resemblance is none the less uncanny. The entire interface is more or less streamlined, with more curves, and the semi-transparent windows are immediately visible. To some extent, it can be argued that transparent windows are helpful for productivity reasons by letting the user see through the window to whatever is below, but since this only applies to the borders, it's more along the lines of functional eye-candy. At any rate, we're a bit skewed towards eye-candy around here (Mac usage has shot up immensely since Anand started covering that market, with at least 3 of our editors admitting to their Mac addiction), so we don't really have any complaints about it. Aero is an aesthetically pleasing UI that doesn't decrease usability.
With that said, the eye-candy covering every window can only distract for a moment; we need to talk about some of the interface changes Microsoft has made to Vista in general. Vista is the biggest change in Microsoft's human-computer interaction (HCI) guidelines since Windows 95 launched, replacing several methods with new designs. The menu toolbar is gone in many applications, including Explorer itself, and frankly it's very disorienting at first. The "classic menus" as Microsoft calls them can be enabled for those who miss them, and indeed we did enable them shortly after we installed Vista, but as they'll ultimately be removed entirely in some future Windows version now that they've been deprecated, users will need to get used to the new system at some point. After spending the better part of a week forcing ourselves to use Vista with the classic menus turned off, we can get around about as well as we could with the classic menus in the first place, though there's a fair bit of keyboard shortcut usage thrown in. For a glimpse into the direction Microsoft wants to take us, the Beta 2 version of Microsoft Office 2007 implements a navigation system Microsoft calls "ribbons". These large, tabbed, icon filled menu+toolbar replacements are designed to make it easier for a user to find what he or she needs in an application chock full of options.
Other, less immediate HCI changes include using Explorer to browse folders, where Microsoft has moved even farther away from using the old hierarchical sidebar in favor of a more abstracted system based on virtual folders. Search is also much more pervasive in Vista, as there's a search bar in nearly every Explorer window and in many other Microsoft applications too; it has a very strong resemblance to how Apple implemented Spotlight on Mac OS X. Last but not least, one no longer needs to "start" Windows to shut it down; Microsoft is keeping the start menu, but has replaced the Start button with a Windows icon.
While Vista has numerous new features Microsoft is hoping will entice users to upgrade, the most immediate and visible change is the new Aero interface that will be the preferred look for Vista. Since Microsoft is making a big deal of it both for reasons of eye-candy (whether we like to admit to it or not, eye-candy sells) and productivity allowed by using GPU-acceleration, this is where we will start our look.
 |
| Click to enlarge |
One disadvantage of Microsoft's long cycle time between releasing XP and Vista is that their main competition in the consumer space, Apple, has had the chance to release several OS revisions in between the releases of XP and Vista, and will likely release one more before Vista ships. Given this lead, it shouldn't come as a shock that certain elements of Aero/Vista end up looking like Mac OS X, and while Microsoft isn't going to admit to it any time soon, we're not going to ignore it. Mac OS X implemented several good ideas both in terms of eye-candy and usability/productivity, so we're certainly not going to complain if Microsoft has borrowed some of these ideas for Aero. However, we expect that they'll try to improve on the design of Aero over Mac OS X as well.
In general, Microsoft has ditched the traditional Windows blue for a white color that wouldn't be out of place in Mac OS X. As with colors in XP, this is all user-configurable, and several different template colors are included, but the resemblance is none the less uncanny. The entire interface is more or less streamlined, with more curves, and the semi-transparent windows are immediately visible. To some extent, it can be argued that transparent windows are helpful for productivity reasons by letting the user see through the window to whatever is below, but since this only applies to the borders, it's more along the lines of functional eye-candy. At any rate, we're a bit skewed towards eye-candy around here (Mac usage has shot up immensely since Anand started covering that market, with at least 3 of our editors admitting to their Mac addiction), so we don't really have any complaints about it. Aero is an aesthetically pleasing UI that doesn't decrease usability.
 |
| Click to enlarge |
With that said, the eye-candy covering every window can only distract for a moment; we need to talk about some of the interface changes Microsoft has made to Vista in general. Vista is the biggest change in Microsoft's human-computer interaction (HCI) guidelines since Windows 95 launched, replacing several methods with new designs. The menu toolbar is gone in many applications, including Explorer itself, and frankly it's very disorienting at first. The "classic menus" as Microsoft calls them can be enabled for those who miss them, and indeed we did enable them shortly after we installed Vista, but as they'll ultimately be removed entirely in some future Windows version now that they've been deprecated, users will need to get used to the new system at some point. After spending the better part of a week forcing ourselves to use Vista with the classic menus turned off, we can get around about as well as we could with the classic menus in the first place, though there's a fair bit of keyboard shortcut usage thrown in. For a glimpse into the direction Microsoft wants to take us, the Beta 2 version of Microsoft Office 2007 implements a navigation system Microsoft calls "ribbons". These large, tabbed, icon filled menu+toolbar replacements are designed to make it easier for a user to find what he or she needs in an application chock full of options.
Other, less immediate HCI changes include using Explorer to browse folders, where Microsoft has moved even farther away from using the old hierarchical sidebar in favor of a more abstracted system based on virtual folders. Search is also much more pervasive in Vista, as there's a search bar in nearly every Explorer window and in many other Microsoft applications too; it has a very strong resemblance to how Apple implemented Spotlight on Mac OS X. Last but not least, one no longer needs to "start" Windows to shut it down; Microsoft is keeping the start menu, but has replaced the Start button with a Windows icon.
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Squidward - Friday, June 16, 2006 - link
Having beta tested Windows XP when it was released, I have to say that so far I'm not very impressed with Vista. Granted there is still quite some time before final release but even with RC1 of XP it was a rock solid stable OS that I used as my full time OS and never had any issues whatsoever (especially security cause no one was writing viruses and malware for it back then). Quite frankly I don't see how the beta 2 I've been looking at and the final polished out the door product is going to happen in 7 months for a Jan. launch. The real problem however lies in the fact that I know I will move up to Vista at some point, but not because it's a better OS than XP but that I'll be hindered by continuing to use an older operating system. I just haven't seen anything in it yet that made me go. "Now that's the kind of feature I've been needing!", and the few features that did make me feel that way were removed to be implemented 'at a later date'. Fancy graphical effects are nice and all, but they don't make an OS. As it stands in the betas the UAC feature is just a complete hinderance that to me seems to punish the end user because of security risks that are out there. The end user shouldn't get a pop up on every single application or item they open to be sure it's 'safe'. There are far better means of controlling permissions within an OS that would have made a lot more sense that what we have now with UAC. That being said, I believe in time and with Microsoft really listening to customer feedback they'll work out a lot of the kinks, but I won't consider purchasing Vista until they do... or force me to upgrade. :)Pirks - Friday, June 16, 2006 - link
Besides this thing being early beta, also keep in mind that it's not a cosmetic chaneg akin to upgrade from W2k to XP or from OSX 10.3 to 10.4 - this is a major OS overhaul not too far from migration from 9x to NT, of course early beta of such a grand release will be total crap (at least for many people, but some others seem to enjoy it a lot). So, comparing this early beta release to XP release candidate is indeed pretty stupid. I don't even expect Vista release to be 100% usable out of the box, ESPECIALLY x64 version - Vista 64 will take another year or two to mature, get drivers/apps ready and such. And you should also keep in mind that MS is in a big hurry to avoid Apple to chop its balls off - some more delay and you'll see Apple market share well over 10% which is pretty dangerous to MS if they wanna keep enjoying their desktop x86 OS monopoly status. Hence MS does stuff quickly, cuts off features and will probably release something buggy just to avoid serious threat from Apple. Expect something usable only after SP1 and give it at least a year - in a meantime read some rumours about Leopard and salivate a little - that'll keep you going ;-))Yet another nice point - you think MS will sit still and let Leopard to chew its (MS's) private parts with impunity? I doubt that - MS will very likely release those nice sweet WinFS and other toys there were promising for years and integrate them in the next Vista release (I hope Leopard or whatever Mr. Jobs is up to isn't going to eat that for lunch - 'cause WinFS is the last hope for MS, really - DX10 won't count, too small a market it seems). So, in two years or maybe earlier you'll get those new sexy features you want, I believe... well, Apple could probably beat MS's ass here again, which is even more likely judging how well Apple devs were performing so far, so maybe you won't be interested in Vista at all - OS scene moves very fast - bang bang and u'r dead :) Especially now when Ballmer replaced BG - I'm worried, I don't quite trust Ballmer and Ozzie and others - ol' Bill was da man, not sure Vista survives w/o him when his archrival Jobs is only started to accelerate before real takeoff (Leopard?), but we'll see, we'll see...
Oh, interesting, tell stupid us what is this "far better means of controlling permissions within an OS" instead of annoying ugly UAC, this must be something revolutionary and ingenious - maybe MS will pay you big bucks for that, who knows ;-))
ChronoReverse - Friday, June 16, 2006 - link
You tested RC1 of XP. Release Candidate 1.This is BETA 2 of Vista. Maybe when they release RC1 of Vista you can compare again.
Frallan - Friday, June 16, 2006 - link
Well i found 1 thing to be more interesting then the rest: Gaming Perfomance!!That means that at least til the games I want to play are DX10 combined with the fact that DX10 games get better results im going to stax with my XP.
Sorry M$
/F
Googer - Friday, June 16, 2006 - link
There are so many versions and the feature sets will confuse most of us.Here is a screen shot from Paul Thurott's Win Super Site.
http://pics.bbzzdd.com/users/Googer/Windows_Vista_...">Windows Vista Versions.
Ryan Smith - Friday, June 16, 2006 - link
Keep in mind that that's an old chart. Small Business Edition no longer exists, and Professional is now Business Edition.Googer - Saturday, June 17, 2006 - link
Thanks forthe update. Here is the now silghtly out of date chart but still has some usefull information.http://www.winsupersite.com/showcase/winvista_edit...">http://www.winsupersite.com/showcase/winvista_edit...
slashbinslashbash - Friday, June 16, 2006 - link
Page 8, "regulated" should be "relegated"Also in the same sentence, "Superfetc.h" (which might not be a typo)
A 14-page article with 2 minor problems.... The quality ratio here at AT just kills DailyTech.... please impose AT quality control on DailyTech!
JarredWalton - Friday, June 16, 2006 - link
Fixed - DT runs a lot of short, quick articles, and unfortunately that means they get more typos and errors. Anyway, since they are a separate entity, there's not much we can do. Feel free to post and tell them, though, but remember they're looking at probably 10X as many press releases as we do. LOLDerekWilson - Friday, June 16, 2006 - link
1) vista is perfectly capable of being a stable light weight desktop system (with some quirks) at the beta 2 stage ... but try to do anything fast or power hungry and you'd be better off sticking with xp until vista is released. right now, at beta 2, vista is a neat toy. don't try to use it for everything.2) after all the spit an polish dries, i will still prefer os x to vista
3) final verdict? same as it ever was -- i'll be running vista for games and linux for programming. and since i've recently been bitten by the switch bug, os x for everything else.