Amateur review of Microsoft Windows Vista

[Trent]

Since I work for a company that is an MSDN member, we get early cracks at all MS products, including Windows Vista RTM (Release to Market, i.e. the finished code) and Office 2007. Since I also just recently got an Inspiron 6400, I decided to load Vista and give it a shot.

Early impressions:
1.) It's purty. The Aero interface is attractive, though very (eerily) Mac-like. In fact, the whole OS has an obvious Mac OS feel, right down to the pointer.
2.) The gadgets panel is annoying, and the only reason i keep it at all is because i moved it over to another monitor and i found an RDP gadget.
3.) NO TELNET OR HYPERTERMINAL?!!! How the hell am I supposed to diagnose email servers or program Cisco boxes without these tools? (not that my 6400 has a serial port anyway, but i digress)
4.) MEMORY HOGGG. Just sitting here with no other apps open by IE7 and Outlook and i'm using 875 MB of RAM.
5.) The User Authentication Control is annoying as hell. Basically, Vista requires a user to cruise around with the lowest set of priviledges required to do one's job. So even if I am a member of the administrators group, Vista requires me to elevate my priviledges every time I do something that requires admin rights. Fortunately, this can be turned off.
6.) No run command, printers folder, or control panel by default on the start menu. You can turn these on though.
7.) NO winfs. The file system is still ntfs.
8.) VPN sessions and network connections are handled by an app now, and are more difficult and slow to manage.

Basically, I've found that my productivity since switching to Vista is drastically reduced. I'm not at all impressed with the user friendliness or the functionality. I will be switching back to XP Pro as soon as possible.

Just FYI for those thinking of switching.

[mx654321]

Any screen shots?

[easyBob]

Vista seems like an OS for the noobs. Kinda sounds like they want to make it idiot proof. I'll just keep using xp or switch to linux someday, if I have too.

-Chris

[mx654321]

Which is actually better? Linux of XP? I have pro and have not really had any problems with it. And the New IE7 is pretty good. I like that they finally added that tab for new pages and how you can view all pages at the same time.

[easyBob]

Originally Posted by mx654321

Which is actually better? Linux of XP? I have pro and have not really had any problems with it. And the New IE7 is pretty good. I like that they finally added that tab for new pages and how you can view all pages at the same time.

I'm sure some people will think linux is better, but I just know/use windows more. I'll only change to linux if I have to. I don't use IE anymore either, firefox is fine, but has a few things I don't like about it (like when one window crashes, they all do, no matter what, unlike IE*)

-Chris

* - IE wouldn't crash all windows if you clicked on the IE icon to open a new window....If you just used the "Open in new window", those would crash.

[Si[xXx]er]

Originally Posted by Trent

4.) MEMORY HOGGG. Just sitting here with no other apps open by IE7 and Outlook and i'm using 875 MB of RAM.

Holy crap!!!?!? I heard it needed a ton of ram but almost 900 megs? Wow, makes me wish I had purchased more than a gig with my new computer.

-Bryce

[Jon]

Originally Posted by Trent

Early impressions:
1.) It's purty. The Aero interface is attractive, though very (eerily) Mac-like. In fact, the whole OS has an obvious Mac OS feel, right down to the pointer.

The coolest new UI I've seen is Ubuntu's 3d linux desktops. Functional, not really, but cool? Hell Yeah.

3.) NO TELNET OR HYPERTERMINAL?!!! How the hell am I supposed to diagnose email servers or program Cisco boxes without these tools? (not that my 6400 has a serial port anyway, but i digress)

Write your own noob Or just download one of the many better telnets available anyways

4.) MEMORY HOGGG. Just sitting here with no other apps open by IE7 and Outlook and i'm using 875 MB of RAM.

Hmm, I mentioned that to a buddy of mine on MSN, here was his reply:

WinXP running firefox w/ 3 tabs, daemon tools, msn live...280mb, running inside a VMware console on Linux.

5.) The User Authentication Control is annoying as hell. Basically, Vista requires a user to cruise around with the lowest set of priviledges required to do one's job. So even if I am a member of the administrators group, Vista requires me to elevate my priviledges every time I do something that requires admin rights. Fortunately, this can be turned off.

This is a good thing and how things should be handled. Linux has always been like this. Nothing frusterates me more than XP's user profiles.

[Trent]

Originally Posted by Jon

Write your own noob Or just download one of the many better telnets available anyways

yeah, i was waiting for someone to say that. (and i was like 99% certain that someone would be YOU). this is true, but i shouldn't, ya know, HAVE TO.

And as far as the UAC, yeah, that's all well and good for someone like me, but i will never, repeat NEVER install Vista for my mom's computer. It asks too many questions and requires the end user to know too much about what they're actually doing. Case in point, my mom actually called me out of class one day when i was in high school because she got a popup that looked like a dialog box and she didn't know what to do.

[dibbles]

we loaded it on 2 computers at work to see how they would work and respond to the enviroment, so far thye havent really crashed, but it does look alot like they are ripping off OS,meh not impressed really, but we also just got in 2 mac pro's and parallels is the [shizzle]!!!!!!!

[LARKEN]

3.) NO TELNET OR HYPERTERMINAL?!!! How the hell am I supposed to diagnose email servers or program Cisco boxes without these tools? (not that my 6400 has a serial port anyway, but i digress)

Bill gates lives in a world of consumer fads. He thinks everyone just needs a USB and a digital camera. He has decided that we don't need Serial ports and parallel ports any more
In my shop i have many things that need serial ports such as PIC programmer, Vinyl Plotter, CNC mills, Digitizer arm, and others. And many process controls run on the parallel port.

4.) MEMORY HOGGG. Just sitting here with no other apps open by IE7 and Outlook and i'm using 875 MB of RAM.

Its all a scam to make people have to buy new computers. Best think to do is ERASE outlook and run Thunderbird.

[Lambera]

Okay I just wanted to chime in since I work in the marketing group.

1. Purty blah! Dont we all just turn that [shizzle] off.
2. Gadgets is really cool if you are a guru in powershell and power tools.
3. Meh, havent used telnet in years, sorry. Im sure there are other programs.
4. HUGE [fizzle]ING PIG..... cough sp1 beta cough....
5. People are dumb and people like to attack MS. I dont blame them for trying to make it more idiot proof, because well are major market is dumbasses. Anyways disable all that stuff.
6. Just so you know the Index search works just like the run, try it MSTSC will start RDP
7. I cant help you there I work in the Server Readiness Group and well we do things ALOT DIFFERANT.
8. Okay so VPN is dead with Longhorn Server. TS Gateway and Remote Applications replaces that. Trent if you are interested in bits and labs PM me we can talk, Im looking for testers, in fact Im sure I could send you a nice bluetooth stainless steel mouse for some good detailed feedback.


In closing the Vista Group is strange because they are so far behind all the other groups here. Basicly Vista RTM is the same bits as the Server IDS Build between Beta 2 and Beta 3.

Originally Posted by Trent

Early impressions:
1.) It's purty. The Aero interface is attractive, though very (eerily) Mac-like. In fact, the whole OS has an obvious Mac OS feel, right down to the pointer.
2.) The gadgets panel is annoying, and the only reason i keep it at all is because i moved it over to another monitor and i found an RDP gadget.
3.) NO TELNET OR HYPERTERMINAL?!!! How the hell am I supposed to diagnose email servers or program Cisco boxes without these tools? (not that my 6400 has a serial port anyway, but i digress)
4.) MEMORY HOGGG. Just sitting here with no other apps open by IE7 and Outlook and i'm using 875 MB of RAM.
5.) The User Authentication Control is annoying as hell. Basically, Vista requires a user to cruise around with the lowest set of priviledges required to do one's job. So even if I am a member of the administrators group, Vista requires me to elevate my priviledges every time I do something that requires admin rights. Fortunately, this can be turned off.
6.) No run command, printers folder, or control panel by default on the start menu. You can turn these on though.
7.) NO winfs. The file system is still ntfs.
8.) VPN sessions and network connections are handled by an app now, and are more difficult and slow to manage.

Basically, I've found that my productivity since switching to Vista is drastically reduced. I'm not at all impressed with the user friendliness or the functionality. I will be switching back to XP Pro as soon as possible.

Just FYI for those thinking of switching.

I would also like to add there are so many things we are faced with that people will never know about. Law suits..... did you know we had to change our whole activation system because the way it worked in XP a company suide us saying they developed that technology.... so now you can install any bits Server and Client with out a code and then activate it.

I wish the public could spend a week on campus... it would explain why some of are products get released how they do.... not to justifiy it but it happens.

[Lambera]

I love how people thing BG is even remotely involved in the check off of a product.

Originally Posted by LARKEN

Bill gates lives in a world of consumer fads. He thinks everyone just needs a USB and a digital camera. He has decided that we don't need Serial ports and parallel ports any more
In my shop i have many things that need serial ports such as PIC programmer, Vinyl Plotter, CNC mills, Digitizer arm, and others. And many process controls run on the parallel port.


Its all a scam to make people have to buy new computers. Best think to do is ERASE outlook and run Thunderbird.

[Lambera]

Oh Screenshots? What do you guys want.... I work in Marketing/PR.... Betas... mmmmm

[Trent]

Actually, i just discovered the telnet client can be turned on as a windows option. It baffles me why they didn't just have it enabled from the get-go like every other windows release before, though.

And yeah, i figured out the search bar thing too. I just use windows+r to get my run command anyway. i'm just stubborn like that.

[Lambera]

anyways my point is Vista RTM is 6001 Windows Longhorn Server IDS the build between Beta 2 and Beta 3 is 6001....


So SP1 will be around LHS RTM