Windows Vista is the “next generation” operating system from Microsoft, well that’s what they say. The “WOW” starts now is their new tagline, so does it really? I am going to review the new and rather expensive offering from the biggest computing company in the world.
Microsoft say that they are hoping for Windows Vista to be installed on 100 million computers by the end of 2007, but the people that I have discussed Windows VIsta with, all say the same thing, they’ll buy it when SP1 (codenamed, Windows Figi) is released, this will get rid of all the bugs in the system, of which there are a lot.
For a start, if you think there is fantastic driver support, then think again, when I installed Vista there were 4 drivers missing, OK, go online and get some new drivers, but the Ethernet card driver is missing, I cannot get on the internet. I finally get a driver for the network card and out of three I tried only one worked. Driver support isn’t good, I think you can establish that and this is one of the main reasons why people are reluctant to upgrade, after all why couldn’t MS just offer support for XP drivers.
Installing has its problems as well, I started an upgrade from XP Professional SP2 at about 8:30 at night, I ended the setup at about 11:45 after I wanted to go to sleep. I get up the next morning and turn on the computer only to have it say there was a problem and it was restoring to XP, over three hours of my time and electricity disappearing before my very eyes. I would like to point out that the clean install that I did the following night finished in just over an hour.
I’ve had my moan now, so lets start to point out some of the good parts of Windows Vista.
It looks great, my computer cannot run the new Aero interface at the moment, but the basic interface works a treat. The user interface is very similar to Windows XP with the taskbar and desktop setup. A new addition is the Windows sidebar which allows you to add widgets (sorry, gadgets) which you can download from the internet, these include things like live feeds and news and weather.
Microsoft keep pointing out that Windows Vista is more productive enabling you to carry out tasks quicker and more effectively, with features like desktop search and start search. You can now launch any application or file on your computer by simply typing in the title of the file in the start menu. As you type, search results will start appearing as soon as the file you want to open is at the top of the list, simple press Enter and it will open.
That is all for part one, I will go into more detail of the many features in Microsoft Windows Vista in the following parts, including the security, the new interface, new applications and better organisation. So keep coming back for new parts and why not subscribe to the RSS feed.
Simon North, 4th February 2007
February 5, 2007 at 3:26 am
“Microsoft keep pointing out that Windows Vista is more productive enabling you to carry out tasks quicker and more effectively, with features like desktop search and start search. You can now launch any application or file on your computer by simply typing in the title of the file in the start menu. As you type, search results will start appearing as soon as the file you want to open is at the top of the list, simple press Enter and it will open.”
There’s a little open-source program for Windows XP called Launchy that does something like that, hit Alt + Space, type in what you’re looking for, and it searches the start menu. Has lots of skins, and you can let it search Firefox bookmarks, and just about anywhere on your PC.
February 5, 2007 at 3:26 am
Heh, forgot a link.
http://launchy.net/