Saturday, July 01, 2006
Windows Vista Beta 2
I have often criticized Microsoft as of late for their new operating system called Vista. I've complained about how slow it is, about how un-computer-user-friendly it is. Well, I'm here to tell you that I've changed my tone slightly with the latest beta build of Vista.
Vista Beta 2 is light years ahead of what it was in Beta 1. This build is much more usable and much more friendly to those of us not brand new to computers. That was my main gripe about Beta 1: it was catering so strongly to beginning computer users that anyone with a little bit of experience on a Windows machine would have a difficult time using it. Beta 1 insisted that you use it's "virtual folders" scheme for saving things. Browsing the file system was made more difficult because you didn't know where things were stored. Now, for most users, this is probably not a problem because they don't brows the file system anyhow. To find a file, they use their applications. They don't really care where a particular application deposits its files as long as they can open the files the next time they use the application. Some users don't even care what files even are and the computer just represents a magic black box and who knows how it works. For these types of users, Beta 1 of Vista was perfect. It obscured the whole file system model and put a big sign on the hard drive that read: "It's none of your business what's in here."
With Beta 2, this is vastly improved. Upon installing the operating system, I was pleased to find that the file system is not so obscured. It is actually an improvement on the current system used by XP and Windows Server 2003. Paths are changed slightly to a more logical setup. For instance, all user information and settings (data, files, directories) are stored in C:\Users. Logical. In XP, this is stored in C:\Documents and Settings. Not so logical. There's nothing to indicate where the users' home directories are.
Another file system improvement was the lack of the "virtual folders" model. If it's there, I certainly didn't see it when I was running Vista Beta 2. Virtual folders seem like a really good way to waste hard disk space. It seems that the virtual folder concept calls for files to be located in an undisclosed location while placing a shortcut in the virtual folder. Again, for very novice computer users, this may seem logical since they would not have to know where things are saved. But for those of us with a bit of experience, we take comfort in knowing where our files are located. And taking up hard disk space with duplicate copies or shortcuts just seems illogical.
While I am quick to heap praise (just a bit) on Windows Vista Beta 2, I am very quick to point out that not all is well in Sherwood Forest. There are some things that come across to me as a bit unnerving. First, I installed Vista Beta 2 on a 10 gigabyte partition to dual-boot with XP. I thought 10 gigs ought to be sufficient for the operating system and some data. I was almost right. After installing the operating system and then running Windows update, the tally came to a hefty 7 gigs and change. That is a huge operating system; especially when you consider that it does not come with Office or any real productivity tools. You get some nice card games to play, but what about real games. It's plain to see that this is going to require some pretty beefy hardware.
Second, the Save dialog (the one you get whenever you download something or save a document) has been completely rewritten. Instead of having a nice browser-type interface with a pull-down menu, it now has a breadcrumb menu instead. This is going to take some getting used to. It's much less obvious where you're saving your files to.
Third, Windows Vista Beta 2 did not have a built-in driver for my network card. This is the first time since Windows 98 that I have seen Windows not ship with a driver for a standard wired network card. The card I was using is a CNET PRO200WL 10/100 Ethernet NIC. Windows 2000 and Windows XP like it just fine. Vista Beta 1 had no problems with it. But, Beta 2 did not recognize it. I had to use XP and download the appropriate driver for it. Then, when Beta 2 had started, I used the hardware wizard to install the driver. I can understand doing that for a piece of hardware like a scanner or a printer, but a standard network card? I guess that it's a mixed blessing that Beta 2 didn't ship with a big driver database because if it did, Vista would have taken up my entire 10 gig partition. :)
Fourth, who the heck designed IE 7? While it's slightly better than Beta 1, it's still terrible to use next to browsers like Firefox or Opera. The buttons and functions are splattered all over the place in a fairly illogical pattern. I have to move my mouse a lot to get to various buttons. And as it is with the entire Vista UI, menus are turned off by default. To top it all off, it's still IE to the core, which means that it's slower at rendering pages than the open source browsers, and it's an inherant security risk by being an integral part of the OS. Suffice it to say that IE7 has not won back this Firefox convert.
Finally, all settings, no matter how insignificant, MUST go through the Control Panel. That's right. If you wish to change your display resolution, you right-click on the desktop and select Preferences. This takes you to a screen of the Control Panel, where, in a few more clicks, you can get to the familiar Display Properties window. Changing the wallpaper is a similar process. It seems that it's a lot of clicking and navigating to get something changed. Sometimes the Display Properties window is customized for certain operations and cannot be used for other operations. Those other things must be done separately.
So, in short, Windows Vista Beta 2 is a huge improvement over Beta 1 in terms of usability and lack of frustration. However, it is not completely free of faults (what Microsoft product is?). A major issue for me, as it always is, is Internet Explorer. I can't stand that browser and it just doesn't seem like Microsoft cares enough to really improve it. The way to improve IE is to remove it from the OS and release it as a standalone product that does not entrench itself deeply into the operating system. So, while I do think that Vista will be a good step for computer manufacturers to use to sell more products, I see very little in the way of a compelling reason to upgrade from XP. In fact, unless you are running a serious gamer rig, you probably won't get your $199 worth out of it.
Vista Beta 2 is light years ahead of what it was in Beta 1. This build is much more usable and much more friendly to those of us not brand new to computers. That was my main gripe about Beta 1: it was catering so strongly to beginning computer users that anyone with a little bit of experience on a Windows machine would have a difficult time using it. Beta 1 insisted that you use it's "virtual folders" scheme for saving things. Browsing the file system was made more difficult because you didn't know where things were stored. Now, for most users, this is probably not a problem because they don't brows the file system anyhow. To find a file, they use their applications. They don't really care where a particular application deposits its files as long as they can open the files the next time they use the application. Some users don't even care what files even are and the computer just represents a magic black box and who knows how it works. For these types of users, Beta 1 of Vista was perfect. It obscured the whole file system model and put a big sign on the hard drive that read: "It's none of your business what's in here."
With Beta 2, this is vastly improved. Upon installing the operating system, I was pleased to find that the file system is not so obscured. It is actually an improvement on the current system used by XP and Windows Server 2003. Paths are changed slightly to a more logical setup. For instance, all user information and settings (data, files, directories) are stored in C:\Users. Logical. In XP, this is stored in C:\Documents and Settings. Not so logical. There's nothing to indicate where the users' home directories are.
Another file system improvement was the lack of the "virtual folders" model. If it's there, I certainly didn't see it when I was running Vista Beta 2. Virtual folders seem like a really good way to waste hard disk space. It seems that the virtual folder concept calls for files to be located in an undisclosed location while placing a shortcut in the virtual folder. Again, for very novice computer users, this may seem logical since they would not have to know where things are saved. But for those of us with a bit of experience, we take comfort in knowing where our files are located. And taking up hard disk space with duplicate copies or shortcuts just seems illogical.
While I am quick to heap praise (just a bit) on Windows Vista Beta 2, I am very quick to point out that not all is well in Sherwood Forest. There are some things that come across to me as a bit unnerving. First, I installed Vista Beta 2 on a 10 gigabyte partition to dual-boot with XP. I thought 10 gigs ought to be sufficient for the operating system and some data. I was almost right. After installing the operating system and then running Windows update, the tally came to a hefty 7 gigs and change. That is a huge operating system; especially when you consider that it does not come with Office or any real productivity tools. You get some nice card games to play, but what about real games. It's plain to see that this is going to require some pretty beefy hardware.
Second, the Save dialog (the one you get whenever you download something or save a document) has been completely rewritten. Instead of having a nice browser-type interface with a pull-down menu, it now has a breadcrumb menu instead. This is going to take some getting used to. It's much less obvious where you're saving your files to.
Third, Windows Vista Beta 2 did not have a built-in driver for my network card. This is the first time since Windows 98 that I have seen Windows not ship with a driver for a standard wired network card. The card I was using is a CNET PRO200WL 10/100 Ethernet NIC. Windows 2000 and Windows XP like it just fine. Vista Beta 1 had no problems with it. But, Beta 2 did not recognize it. I had to use XP and download the appropriate driver for it. Then, when Beta 2 had started, I used the hardware wizard to install the driver. I can understand doing that for a piece of hardware like a scanner or a printer, but a standard network card? I guess that it's a mixed blessing that Beta 2 didn't ship with a big driver database because if it did, Vista would have taken up my entire 10 gig partition. :)
Fourth, who the heck designed IE 7? While it's slightly better than Beta 1, it's still terrible to use next to browsers like Firefox or Opera. The buttons and functions are splattered all over the place in a fairly illogical pattern. I have to move my mouse a lot to get to various buttons. And as it is with the entire Vista UI, menus are turned off by default. To top it all off, it's still IE to the core, which means that it's slower at rendering pages than the open source browsers, and it's an inherant security risk by being an integral part of the OS. Suffice it to say that IE7 has not won back this Firefox convert.
Finally, all settings, no matter how insignificant, MUST go through the Control Panel. That's right. If you wish to change your display resolution, you right-click on the desktop and select Preferences. This takes you to a screen of the Control Panel, where, in a few more clicks, you can get to the familiar Display Properties window. Changing the wallpaper is a similar process. It seems that it's a lot of clicking and navigating to get something changed. Sometimes the Display Properties window is customized for certain operations and cannot be used for other operations. Those other things must be done separately.
So, in short, Windows Vista Beta 2 is a huge improvement over Beta 1 in terms of usability and lack of frustration. However, it is not completely free of faults (what Microsoft product is?). A major issue for me, as it always is, is Internet Explorer. I can't stand that browser and it just doesn't seem like Microsoft cares enough to really improve it. The way to improve IE is to remove it from the OS and release it as a standalone product that does not entrench itself deeply into the operating system. So, while I do think that Vista will be a good step for computer manufacturers to use to sell more products, I see very little in the way of a compelling reason to upgrade from XP. In fact, unless you are running a serious gamer rig, you probably won't get your $199 worth out of it.
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