Windows Vista

(First Impressions)

Being a UNIX person, you may think that this blog comes with the usual biggotted Windows trashing, but I assure you that I don't quite feel that way. There is a place for Windows, Linux, UNIX, OSX and any other operating system.

As you take this journey with me through the recently released Beta 2 version of Vista, I will point out the good, the bad and the ugly. If you choose to comment on any of my comments, I want you to know right not that I have a few rules.

(1)Do not bring biggotted techno-babble that is not based on true merit. There is enough of that and you can post that crap to the c-net talkback forums if that is what you want to do.

(2) No Flaming.
(3) No advertising for college degree programs or things like that.

BASE

I downloaded both the 32 and 64 bit versions of Vista Beta 2 and burned them to DVDs.
The 32 bit version will be installed on a Dell D810 with a 2.1Ghz processor and 1.2 Gigs of Ram. The 64 bit version will be installed on a eMachines M6811 or a Gateway 7422GX with a Mobile Athlon 64 bit processor.

I did not want to use a desktop because more people are moving to using a laptops so I figured that these two machines would be good candidates. They are solid performers and as I have extra laptops to test on, my desktop machines and servers are in full use.

The Installation (32 Bit on Dell D810)

My first installation is on the Dell D810 and the 32 bit version of Vista. This installation took about 2 hours. I can not be exact of the time because I put a nice blotch of paint on the wall at the same time and watched it dry while the installation continued. I may have nodded off for a short period of time but finally the installation completed.

I have to say that this is the longest OS, installation that I have every done. Installing AIX or HP/UX does not take this long even with patching after the initial install. (Now a mksysb recovery may take that long if you have a 74G rootvg! ).

All that I can say is that I hope the final version improves the installation because it takes too long in is impractical.

Installation GRADE : D+

Initial Asthetics

The new look of Windows under Vista is really good. The system automatically recognized the maximum screen resolution and the fonts are crisp and clean. The start button is now a nice circular icon which fits nicely on any size resolution. I like the shadowing of the windows and the large clock widge is very readable and clear.

You will find that the right side of the screen has a transparent panel that holds all of your gadgets, widgets that are good to keep on your desktop. The slide show picture viewer, Clock and Internet Explore boxes come standard on your initial boot up. You can also place a calculator, CPU Meter, Currency Converter, RSS News Feed viewer and watcher, Sticky Notes, Timer, Stock Ticker and Number puzzle.

You can download additional gadgets (widgets) from Microsoft and probably some third party vendors eventually. For those of you who would like to get this type of functionality from your current windows installation, you can thank the Konfabulator project that was subsequently bought out by Yahoo and is now known as Yahoo Widgets.

I have now moved the start bar from the bottom to the top because it makes more sense to have "drop down" menues come from the top.

I will have to explore the primary start menu panels more. Besides the sluggishness of the OS, I do like the look and feel. It is a very good copy of Mac's OS X.

Aesthetics GRADE : A+

Eunix