The latest version of a Microsoft operating system is coming soon, although exactly when is still up for grabs. If you think back to the start of the Millennium and the release of Windows XP, you will remember things like product activation, a new interface to get familiar with, networking changes and a slow migration of people away from Windows 2000. I still have one of my computers running under Windows 2000 but I was forced to upgrade the others to run some of the newer software. Even today there is some argument if XP is a better OS for all users.
You can now pick up Vista Beta 2 at the usual local places and it looks like the focus is on security and built-in MIS level controls. Neither of these is a bad thing but people are asking about the end user. As a user you will need to navigate a plethora of requests for passwords and navigate your way through the User Account Control questions.
One of the weaknesses of every Windows OS to date has been the setting up of networks and so far this is not looking good, as the settings are all over the place, along with Display Properties. Another weird default is that menus are turned off, so File, Search and so on are not there in folders, IE7 and a bunch of other places, I'm still trying to work this one out.
There are good things about the new OS but the question will be if you really need the upgrade. Take away the upgraded security and the enhanced graphics and many current users will be finding that the answer is no. I agree that better security is a good thing but if it is at the expense of usability then Microsoft has failed somewhere in the design process. It spent a great deal of effort on graphics enhancements including Aero Glass and 3-D support. The new search facilities are also excellent, including the ability to save your search set.
User will be getting a heap of new utilities and functions like automated defrag and HDD backup, a better calendar program, a DVD maker, scan and fax tools, voice recognition, a new Outlook Express, a movie maker, and a faster start up and shut down. There are some other tools that will be useful for some users, like the shared Meeting Space utility.
It is still unlikely that Vista will beat the latest Mac OS X for usability or even graphics quality, particularly with the new Leopard version due out soon. Linux doesn't compete in usability yet, so I put Vista in second place in the OS wars with the exception of available software, for which Microsoft always wins.
Miscosoft has put a huge effort into Vista that far surpassed the efforts for the Mac OS, so why do I rate Vista as second best? Under the current configuration it comes down to usability and the users. Vista is aimed at the 64-bit market with advanced graphics requirements and about 2 GB of RAM to make it work well. This all adds up to a new computer and hardware costs for the adopter. That said, the recent minimum requirements announcement should be taken as a promotion for hardware upgrades. If you have 64MB of video RAM for example, you can still run Vista, or the beta at least, so the 128 MB minimum is conservative depending on how many programs you want to have open at the same time.
A Windows Standard graphics mode has been added in Beta 2. If you want to run in full "Aero" mode and you have, say, 64MB graphics in your new notebook you may be out of luck.
As a business user this will leave you with a problem: you want to use Aero in your company but unless you upgrade all your notebooks and PCs this may not be a viable standard to impose. Note here that you can achieve similar effects under an Apple OS with 32 MB of graphics memory. The Vista Basic interface is fine but for some reason it runs slower than XP if you don't have a lot of RAM. Figure one gigabyte is a good middle place to start with any new computer you plan to use with Vista.
When you install Vista the first thing you notice is the need to create an Admin account as part of User Account Controls (UAC). This is a good thing. If you give a user account admin rights, this is not as good as the Admin logon. However, it is annoying as it means more pop-ups to click. MS decided to add protection to a large range of processes. If you want to access the Control Panel it will invoke a UAC confirmation panel. This gets tiresome with no "Don't ask me this again" check box.
If you have written any applications that access the registry, then they may stop working without specifically assigned permissions to do so. This may mean that thousands of applications will suddenly stop working under Vista. Note to business systems administrators: this will mean that you will have to test and check every possible application your business may be using. Also note that when the UAC comes up, the desktop gets greyed and you can't touch any other applications.
When the first Release Candidate comes out, things may be a little better with the UAC. Bottom line is that you should expect to be clicking a lot of new confirmation boxes as you go about your normal computer use.
I'm already running out of space so in abbreviated form here are some other differences. You can't access Network Connections by right clicking on the network icon anymore. Your network stack now has IPv6 and also two new networking layers. More layers usually means more to worry about. You can also no longer see all the shared components on the network - you have to manually scan down through each computer. Refreshing the network is not very good yet. Basically the peer networking facilities are still a little shaky. Rebooting may become a common task on networked computers.
In general things seem to be hard to find so expect to do more clicking, to access more control panels, wizards and dialog boxes. Display settings are different and have been spread out. Right click on the desktop no longer gives you access to that nice and easy pop-up configuration panel.
The menus setup mentioned above has become too complex to describe so I suggest that you re-enable classic menus when you install Vista. Shutting down is a tiny bit hard with big Sleep and Lock buttons and a tiny shutdown one in the Start Menu.
Reserve time for a long installation process and the cost is probably going to be higher than for XP.
Vista appears to be similar to the Mac OS but without the nice clean interface. In other words, they have "MS'ed" it and made it a bit clumsier and added more work. I'm not yet convinced that people will be rushing out to get the new version of Vista when it hits the streets sometime next year.
