Another look at Windows Vista
March 18th, 2006 by Jake
Microsoft has been issuing out February CTP (Community Technology Preview) betas for Windows Vista (Build 5308) Ultimate Edition. I decided to take a second look at Vista, especially since this CTP is a fully functional, no restrictions, all programs released. Here are some screenshots and descriptions of the latest build of Windows Vista from Microsoft:
A couple of notes: Sorry about the first couple screenshots, I know they’re a bit off. But what can I say, I was using Microsoft Paint, and obviously they haven’t improved that in Vista. Also, these aren’t in any particular order, as I listed the shots in the order I took them.
The new “3D” interface. This is a supplement to Alt+Tab (unfortunately I couldn’t grab a screenshot of the new Alt+Tab menu), showing 3D Transparent windows. You can cycle through each, and it’s running pretty smoothly. The hotkey for this is Windows+Tab.
The Aero Glass theme is fully customizable, you can select preset colors or define your own.
A simple shot of the new Internet Explorer 7. IE7 will include support for phishing, transparent PNG, RSS Feeds, enhanced security (pfft, yeah right), and more.
The Windows Control Panel. Some things have been added, some merged, others removed. For example, the old Display Settings was retired, only to be replaced by the new “Personalize” dialog. Oh yeah, almost forgot: New iSCSI. w00t.
A simple shot showing the new dialog that pops up anytime you execute an administrative command. You might be thinking, as I was, that this might get annoying, but it’s also safe in the sense that if you have spyware or a virus on your computer that tries, for example, to add a folder to C:\Windows\ or tries to change a setting, this window will pop up. If you know you did not initiate this action, you can deny it. Also, if a program needs to perform an administrative action, you can choose in the File Properties to “Run as Administrator.” Supposedly this can be disabled in the Group Policy Settings.
Windows Anti-Spyware Beta and Windows OneCare Live have been retired, only to be replaced by the new Windows Defender. I think this is pretty self explanatory.
The new Windows Media Player 11 designed for Windows Vista (yes, it’s different). Currently, I’m showing my shortened Top 100 of 2005 Playlist.
A simple “My Pictures” view inside the new Windows Explorer. The thing at the top is the new way of selecting folder views. You can resize thumbnails as big or as small as you like. It’s complicated to explain, but it’s definately an improvement (and more eye candy).
Windows Media Center has been included in this release of Vista. It’s got a few added features from the old Media Center, but I wouldn’t know much about it; this is my first time toying with Media Center. Seems pretty useful, especially if your computer has or came with a remote control and you’ve got a really big hard drive and a TV Tuner card.
Hopefully the rumors will disappear with this new release. This is new new Windows Sidebar. It includes support for Desktop Gadgets, just like the Yahoo! Widgets program does. Unfortunately, clicking on “Download More Gadgets” takes you to the Microsoft Gadgets homepage, which does not currently have any Dekstop Gadgets for download. Hopefully we will see a new section on their site for them in the near future.
The Windows Photo Gallery. I didn’t mess around with this for too long, so I can only tell you as much as what’s in the screenshot.
The Windows Performance Rating dialog. This is a very nifty tool that takes a look at your hardware and spits out your processor info, video card info, RAM, and hard drive space, then rates your system accordingly. Windows Vista developers will also be able to set program access based on the rating number your computer recieves. What I want to know, though, is how they come up with this number and what a perfect 5 system would be.
The nw Windows Calendar. Not much to say here, other than they just took the calendar feature out of Outlook, and made it stand-alone. There are some new features in here, as well, but I don’t keep a calendar, so I personally won’t be using this.
A simple shot of the new Start Menu. Pretty self-explanatory.
All of the new Administrative Tools that are included by default in Windows Vista. Notice that they’ve added a Group Policy Management tool, and anyone who has SysAdminned with Windows knows the power of this nifty tool.
The new Windows Games folder. They’ve added new default games into Windows (I read somewhere they were supposed to have Texas Hold’Em, as well, but I don’t see it here…), such as Chess and Mahjong. Oh, and they’ve retired 3D Cadet Space Pinball. (A moment of silence for this awesome game … … okay.) One problem I had was trying to add my own games into here. Apparently you need to create an XML Descriptor file, and copy shortcuts, and make a PNG preview file, and it’s just a pain in the ass. I wish they would make it easier for you to add games you’ve installed here.
The new Network Center. Not too useful, really, I can’t see other computers on my network, and clicking on “View Network Map” doesn’t do a whole lot, either. Hopefully they’ll add to this before releasing it.
Outlook Express is dead. Long live Windows Mail. Wait, no…Long live Gmail. Windows Mail, burn in hell.
The all-rumored new Windows Search. It’s pretty effective, and fairly fast. As you edit and create files in your filesystem, based on settings, it will index your files automatically in the background, making search easier and faster.
Overall, Microsoft really needs to lay off the Eye Candy (although it does look very nice), and get to work on functionality. Now, that’s just my point of view. Some people really love eye candy and could care less how it actually works. Either way, I hope you liked the screenshots!
Benji says:
March 18th, 2006 at 7:02 pm
Hey, Really liked the article, I was wondering what type of Graphics card you own though. Im running an ntegrated intel 64mb, and really wanna give Vista a shot.
Jake says:
March 18th, 2006 at 8:14 pm
Sorry, I don’t think that’ll cut it, it might work, but i’m definately going ot say that you aren’t going to get the Glass theme to work.
As shown in the Performance Rating screenshot, I have an ATi Radeon 9600 256MB AGP card.
Refa says:
March 18th, 2006 at 8:20 pm
Will it eat up all memory resources, beside that it looks nice.
Jake says:
March 18th, 2006 at 8:39 pm
It requires 512MB of memory minimum for everything to run smoothly, I was running it on 1024MB, and it seemed fine. I don’t know if it will even let you install it on a computer with less than 512MB of RAM.
Aninhumer says:
March 19th, 2006 at 4:37 am
Excuse me? What does this have that various other operating systems don’t have? And they can run it on my 4 year old PC.
AJ says:
March 19th, 2006 at 5:08 am
Um, just because something can run on a 4 year old PC doesn’t mean it’s good. Windows 2.1 can run on your 4 year old PC. :) Throw out the obsolete PC and get something new.
You can watch CNN on a 30 year old TV, does that make it a good TV? :)
Rod Shuffler says:
March 19th, 2006 at 5:20 am
The best looking version of Windows yet! But, then, this is the 21st century and Vista reportedly cost more than it took to put a man on the moon. I’m glad when it gets released it will be preinstalled on virtually every PC that ever gets sold. That way you know it will work and look great.
Barty Lambert says:
March 19th, 2006 at 5:20 am
Very nice guide mate,
Gorn says:
March 19th, 2006 at 6:01 am
Yeech look at those ugly Administrative Tools icons!
One of my pet peeves with XP is how they left those God-awful Administrative Tools icons untouched from Windows 2000. If they don’t pretty them up in Vista then I’m going to scream!!! Suck a damn eyesore!
Juice says:
March 19th, 2006 at 6:05 am
When will people stop bagging windows, if they dont like it them and their 4 year old PC’s can stick with the other operating systems that arent made for ease of use.
(P.S. all OSes suck to someone and they ALL have faults)
Great look in cheers mate.
Scott says:
March 19th, 2006 at 6:19 am
Nice screenshots, it is looking very user-friendly. I agree those administrative tools icons really need some touching up. I hope the Windows-Tab switching looks nicer than the screenshot suggests though.
I noticed that internet explorer had a google search field, is that included by Microsoft? The default is MSN search right?
dloko.com/blog » Blog Archive » Latest Windows Vista Ultimate Edition screens says:
March 19th, 2006 at 6:31 am
[…] Although I prefer OS X Tiger for general computing, I’m not anti-Windows. But I like a pretty face, and I like a pretty OS. I can deal with using Windows XP Professional when I have to Energy Blue (or “royale”) theme installed, but it’s still a butt-ugly OS. I’m glad Microsoft is making Windows Vista looking good, be it a bit over the top and cluttered. I just hope that running the Aero Glass theme doesn’t take away from game performance. That would just be plain stupid.read more | digg story […]
Petey Roone says:
March 19th, 2006 at 7:06 am
Lovely article. Excellent screenshots.
Keep up the good work!
Emil says:
March 19th, 2006 at 7:15 am
Nice article. But i hate the look of the interface. Looks like any other crappy futureskin that you can get to XP.
I wonder if they will make any slick minimalistic skin. Maybe they already have it, this is the first pictures i’ve seen of Vista…
leevi says:
March 19th, 2006 at 7:59 am
Wheres the screenshot of the blue screen :) jking. nice article thanks for the large screen shots
Aninhumer says:
March 19th, 2006 at 9:54 am
“Um, just because something can run on a 4 year old PC doesn’t mean it’s good.”
I didn’t just say it ran on it, I said it did everything that Vista does on it.
“Throw out the obsolete PC and get something new.”
Why? I can get anything new to run fine on this one, and when it comes to it I’d rather upgrade it.
Jordan says:
March 19th, 2006 at 10:40 am
WINDOWS MAIL!!?? GADGETS!!?? C’mon MS, be clever, dont copy so extremely close to Apple (yay Apple) or even COPY THEM! That’s just plain lazy, they wait for others to invent, then they practcally do copy and paste work.
Nimajus says:
March 19th, 2006 at 10:43 am
If you did not try to install Vista on your machine, stop shouting about minimum requirements. Just like I can run NeedForSpeed Underground 2 on PIII 600MHz with 768MB (although minimum requirements state 1GHz processor) I am sure Vista will run on older machines.
I installed Vista on Athlon XP 2800+, with 1gig of memory and geforcefx 5900xt and all the features worked fine with a little bit of slow down. With older machines you’ll just have to turn off the visual effects, and classic mode in Windows Vista still looks very beautiful.
So don’t whine before you know that it does not work on your older computer, because you don’t know if it does.
Nimajus says:
March 19th, 2006 at 10:51 am
Sorry for double post, but I remembered the Memory issue.
While testing out Vista CTP like everyone else I saw the huge memory usage.
Now I did not investigate this futher, but I am planning to.
I think that Vista is using much much LESS Virtual memory
>>>(to those who don’t know that is instead of using your RAM-fast memory for running applications, it uses your hard drive which is much slower. However it leaves more RAM memory free)
So I think that Vista is doing that. That is why it needs all of that memory. With proper execusion, using only or mostly RAM memory Vista will run much faster and later on fast boot times and etc. can be achieved. This is really a great thing I believe.
Also if you read latest tech news, you probably have heard about the Samsung and Microsoft talking about THE NEW hybrid Hard drives that have Flash Cache integrated. Maybe they are developing Vista so it could use all that Cache for running the OS, and leaving RAM memory for apps… etc.
So these are my thoughts.
Peace
Nimajus says:
March 19th, 2006 at 11:04 am
Sorry for the triple post….
My God people you look at the screens and start shouting THEY COPIED EVERYTHING!!!
Go shout at the f***ing Car companies for making cars. Go f***ing shout at intput device companies for making devices, go shout at tv/monitor companies for making similar devices.
When you’re done, GROW THE F*** UP.
You don’t need a damn Mail Client in your OS?
You don’t want a Gadget thing on your OS?
Is there a patent for “THE GADGET SOFTWARE” that MS is infringing by making such thing?!
I must agree however, MS does not create many beautiful and innovative things, but when it is just doing the work to make a better OS all you do is curse and shout at them.
Also you should see MS Office 2007. And only then you should say MS does not create nothing innovative. They do… sometimes.
Also the AMAZING just AMAZING Voice Recognitions in windows Vista. Strong Parental Controls… Why no one is saying nothing about those things?
mliving says:
March 19th, 2006 at 11:09 am
You know… there is absolutely nothing past the chrome here. Vista is trying SOOOOOOO hard to look like OS X and it should because OS X and the Aqua Interface are truly beautiful.
But what Microsoft continues to miss is the TRUE (not purchased or borrowed) innovation and yes of course the unlying security.
If Steve Jobs wasn’t such a wimp he could take MS on right now. Release a true X486 version of OS X with a complete conversion program and he would win 20% of the market virtually overnight.
Unfortunately, Steve Jobs is a little kind with a big mouth when it comes to taking one Microsoft, Dell, HP and the rest of the big boys. You see, Steveo riding pretty high right now behind his wall garden called iTune but once that wall is removed and the rest of the MP3 makers have a equal shot at iTunes things WILL change.
Apple’s switch to INTEL is JUST a precursor to releasing OS X to the rest of the PC market… it’s the only way Apple will survive after the iPod has reached its zenith… which it’s pretty close to reaching. IMHO.
Steve Jobs is an iWimp! Period. Release OS X to the rest of us and let the best OS win.
gee_mac says:
March 19th, 2006 at 11:31 am
Some very nice shots, but still nothing original, I mean, why everything has to be copying ideas from other plataforms. just one thing: the color of “My Computer” icon are the same of Finder icon on OS X. My question is: How a company like Microsoft whit all the resounces don’t do something really, really new?
mrbee says:
March 19th, 2006 at 12:39 pm
Ok I want to clear things up here, you are wrong about Windows OneCare live being retired. it is NOT I repeat NOT part of Windows defender instead it is a pay service thats going to be released over summer. Windows defender is only the finalized name for Microsoft Antispyware.
AtariBoy » Sunday Afternoon Links says:
March 19th, 2006 at 12:48 pm
[…] Geek and a Halfs view on Vista, some really nice screenshots there. […]
Jake says:
March 19th, 2006 at 1:34 pm
Ah, thanks for the clarification on that, I wasn’t entirely sure. =/
I agree, they do need ot pretty those up quite a bit before release.
Geek and a Half » The Digg Effect says:
March 19th, 2006 at 1:45 pm
[…] I guess fame has its price, as most things do in this world. My Windows Vista story managed to land itself on the front page of Digg.com. If you haven’t checked it out yet, it’s a really sleek technology news site that’s immensely community-driven. Unfortunately Slashdot and Digg work in horrendous ways…check out my Awstats reading from the past couple of hours: […]
tech poetic » Blog Archive » New Vista screenshots says:
March 19th, 2006 at 2:51 pm
[…] […]
Darren Uk says:
March 19th, 2006 at 2:51 pm
Just like to say well done on a very well written article there Jake, Nice one :)
A lot of people seem to be looking at Vista’s visuals moreso then what has actually changed. Vista isn’t just XP with a spiffy new look. The entire underlying engine has been rewritten. The old Win2k/XP GDI engine for example which has been based on an old 16bit codebase has transformed everything. I hate XP, it wasn’t a big leap as I wanted, but Vista will be just that. Sad thing is, we’ll need to upgrade some of our machines too.
Miliardo says:
March 19th, 2006 at 3:01 pm
Ok, I’m getting really tired of people who don’t know this.
Bill Gates–on top of owning the controlling share of M$–owns a sizeable share of Apple Computers. Steve Jobs can’t take on M$ for this reason: Gates can buy up to 51% easily.
Secondly, even if it seems that Vista is a copy of OSX, it’s because that’s what the majority of consumers like and M$ has to follow the bandwagon. We forget this sometimes as “power users” of our respective OS’s.
I’ve personally been trying on the x64 edition of Vista. It’s really pretty cool but like it’s XP counterpart(which I dual boot) it lacks some of the internal compatibility that could make it even faster.(We need more programmers to learn x64 better) The x64 of Vista can take me up to a whole minute to boot up or shut down sometimes which is really saying something with my Athlon 64 3000+ and 2gb of RAM pairedup w/ a Geforce 6600 AGP card.
TonyP says:
March 19th, 2006 at 4:31 pm
I just feel underwhelmed by this all. I prefer the xgl/compiz and mac versions that resize and spread the windows that you have open so that you can see the whole thing versus just an angled view. New icons are nice. If that administrator dialog pops up constantly, like the little bubbles in the bottom right corner in XP do, I imagine it will become very annoying rather quickly. IE7 support for png transparency, took ‘em long enough. What about svg and other new technology, standards (that aren’t they’re own proprietary verrsions)? They may have the largest market share but I still feel like they’re playing catch up. If they’ve done some of the basic, core stuff properly this time, perhaps they’ll adopt a more frequent release cycle so they can offer modern security and features with the rest? In the end, the price (as well as possibly buying a very expensive new computer) is very prohibitive. I like my mac and linux pc’s. Don’t flame me! ;-)
Rapid Fire says:
March 19th, 2006 at 4:36 pm
Do not promote VISTA, it’s a markting plot, no one needs yet another Windows OS, no one realy likes it (the stuff that would make it usefull aren’t there) and as a result no one wants it… geezz…
randal2k says:
March 19th, 2006 at 4:44 pm
looks great, but, what about when the start bar is at the top of the screen, and then you click start, does that look good? or is it spaced by the user image? I am fanatic about ergonomics,and ease of use.
zurik says:
March 19th, 2006 at 4:49 pm
Seriously, do you really think Microsoft is a rip off of OS X? Really? Hardly… Despite the fact that Microsoft owns a nice chunk of Apple, there are few simularities between Vista an OS X. I use both regularly. They both have their pros, and they both have their cons. But come on, those who think it’s a copy clearly haven’t used OS X or are so anti-Microsoft that their vision is clouded. Vista’s new UI is much more grown up compared to Apple’s bubbly look. I don’t think anyone disputes OS X’s graphically rich look, but it’s nothing to boast about. It’s not a radical departure from the old Mac OS — You still can’t even change the color of the windows… Microsoft is taking a huge leap here with the UI and it shows. Let’s be grown ups here… There are fundemental basics of a UI which all OS’s are going to adopt. Some things are bound to be “copied” by different OS’s (don’t forget OS X “borrowed” many features found in Windows). Not to mention many of the Linux GUI’s could easily be called a copy cat. Mac users are always looking for an opportunity to attack Microsoft on anything and this is just another discussion of that.
zurik says:
March 19th, 2006 at 4:51 pm
…correction to my last post… I don’t use Vista regularly since it’s not out, I meant to say XP.
ephe » Looking Glass 3d Vista kaç d says:
March 19th, 2006 at 4:55 pm
[…] Barb Bowman hanım Windows’un yeni çıkaracağı, Vista adlı iÅŸletim sistemi için bir ÅŸeyler söylemiÅŸ. Ekran görüntüleri eÅŸliÄŸinde etkileyici olmuÅŸ. Bir de ÅŸurda çok tatlı bir sunum gördüm. 3d pencereler, renklendirmeler, tam ekranken dolu dolu pencereler vs… etkileyici ve sistem canavarı bir windows daha bekliyor gibi bizi. […]
Real Talk » Blog Archive » Windows Vista says:
March 19th, 2006 at 7:54 pm
[…] [Link] […]
jared says:
March 19th, 2006 at 8:52 pm
Come on people! I’m sick of everyone sitting and dissing Microsoft, and then others dissing Apple. OH SHIT! They almost kind of sort of look the same. I can take an apple and a pear and make the same conclusion as you… but they are different. Vista will revolutionize our future of computers. Microsoft has made so many changes that many of you have no clue about. And honestly, does anyone believe that the beta versions of Vista are exactly the same as the final release? Of course the beta will run slow and the release will have more surprises. And now that I have talked up MS, I will talk about Apple. Apple has many of the BEST products on the market. I can only wait to see what new verions of the Mac OS will hold. Everyone needs to grow up and recognize that the world isn’t perfect. Stop acting like little children and whining. If you don’t like the OS, then learn to make your own and then maybe you’ll understand the difficulties the programmers have of making something from nothing while trying to please hundreds of millions, if not billions, of people.
NerfMeister says:
March 19th, 2006 at 11:07 pm
Why?? Why oh why does it have to be so shiny and pretty?? This just makes me hate it even more, because it’s dragging me in with it’s gorgeous looks, but I can’t stand working on Windows after 11 years worth of the same Windows performance and stability crap version after version. Not to mention I’m against Microsoft’s unethical anti-competition practises…. GAH! Oh well. I’m sticking with my alternative operating systems.
Oh, did I mention it’s gorgeous? ARGH x.x
UpToDateGeek.com » Blog Archive » Geek and a Half » Another look at Windows Vista says:
March 19th, 2006 at 11:18 pm
[…] Geek and a Half » Another look at Windows Vista […]
nvidiaFX » Blog Archive » Original Firsthand look at the latest release of Windows Vista says:
March 20th, 2006 at 8:50 am
[…] read more | digg story […]
Thomas says:
March 20th, 2006 at 11:53 am
Did not read all the posts, but why is there two power options in the control panel?
Catalina says:
March 22nd, 2006 at 3:59 pm
So, how can I get a copy of Vista to try for myself?
Bush says:
March 30th, 2006 at 10:27 am
Hi
Great work! Great Site!!
Regards
sandy says:
April 6th, 2006 at 3:17 pm
very nice
sandy says:
April 6th, 2006 at 3:19 pm
where we can get the download of this ?
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makingcomputers says:
September 19th, 2006 at 6:04 pm
MY THOUGHTS, VERY NICE
BUT NOT WHAT I EXPECTED AFTER THE LONG WAIT
I BELIEVE THE NEW SECURITY WILL ANNOY PEOPLE
UNTIL THEY HAVE A UNDERSTANDING OF IT
OR UNTIL A TECH AJUSTS THESE FEATURES
LOTS OF NICE NEW FEATURES
BUT NOT AS SEXY AS I THOUGHT IT WOULD BE
I AM USING VISTA 64 LOVE THE SPEED
LOVE THE GAMING GRAPHICS
(CLEAN VIBRANT CRISPUNBELIEVABLECLARITY)
LOVE THE FLUIDNESS OF THE VISTA 64 OS
ENJOYING ALL MY APPS THAT CAME OFF XP PRO
THANK YOU VISTA PROGRAMMERS / DESIGNERS
WAITING FOR THE UPDATES
A Look At Windows Vista at Walking Amongst Dark Shadows says:
January 3rd, 2007 at 6:44 pm
[…] Anyway, Jake over at http://spikex.net/blog/ has a small but informative preview on Beta build 5308 of Vista. It’s a good read! […]