Print | posted on Monday, November 27, 2006 2:52 AM
Some more ramblings on my experiences with Windows Vista, primarily based on my "first love", usability...
Personal Files
The organisation model for a user's files is much more obvious and clean. Given the reliability improvements and built in decent backup software one could easily consider running from a single partition - especially on laptops. In addition the flexibility of 'Links' - basically a shortcut but now in a way its truly useful - a nod to Apple this.
Windowing
Using Windows is again workable without getting too frustrating. In XP it was basically maximised everything except on the monster monitor. Vista makes things more productive, especially on small or laptop screens. Mostly everything is more "beautiful" which does add to the experience - it is easily fast enough with 1Gb.
"Explorer"
Dunno if the name has changed, but so far I haven't reset to everything the way I liked it in XP. I still have the dynamic view - rather than defaulting to list. The bottom line is the context based info works nicely and makes it easier to select items. I still experimenting however and may switch things back soon!
Fingerprint Reader
I'm really narked that the software for this still isn't available - this is one of the (few) really poor things about having a Sony laptop. Digital Persona however is very good, and it's logon interaction is much smoother than on XP.
ISO Mounter
Having a new machine means installation marathons and for those ISOs are the fuel. I am trying to live without Nero on this machine, for which the version I got don't run on Vista anyway, so installed Daemon Tools for mounting ISOs. Works very well.
"Built In" "Security"
Well there's probably some DOJ rubbish to waste time and money, but OneCare is just as it should be. This effectively means a few less things to worry about. Having separate tools for patches, virus defs, spyware defs etc is just bullshit. How you gonna get your grandmother to care about that? It ain't happening. A few less restarts would be good but overall it's nice and works with the shell properly, which is often overlooked by other vendors. I like the way Office 2007 asks to be part of Updates.
UAC
I haven't turned if off yet. Yup, it's a pain in the arse. I know it's a good thing and all that, it is valuable to know what's going on. The interruption to working is the exact opposite of the way OneCare works! I guess this is primarily due to a lot of config and installs. Maybe over time this will become less frequent.
Ultimate
Having all the bits in - about time - no dodgy hacks necessary to have the media center and tablet components plus all the new things.
Mobility Center
This is very useful, and all just works. It will be interesting to see how third parties develop extra stuff here.
That's it for now. Overall I'm loving Vista - it was a long enough wait. Using my computer is (a little) less frustrating.