Significant negatives back in 2001 included product activation (which doesn't affect Microsoft volume licensing customers), changes to the network-configuration user interface and the way XP interacted with other versions of Windows on small networks. Was Windows XP truly better than Windows 2000? It was a toss-up in many ways. In the end, I went with the improved app compatibility and user interface improvements of XP. But it wasn't by much.
Well, Microsoft just upped the ante on internal conflict with the release of Vista Beta 2. It boils down to this: The software giant is favoring security and IT controls over end-user productivity. Don't get me wrong, security and IT manageability are very good things. But some of the people actually using the Beta 2 Vista software describe their experience as akin to that of a rat caught in a maze.
Business and home users will be nonplussed by the blizzard of protect-you-from-yourself password-entry and "Continue" boxes required by the User Account Controls feature, for example. Networking functions and settings are scattered all over the place. The same is true of what Windows XP calls Display Properties. By default, the main menus (you know, File, Edit, View, etc.) are turned off on Windows Vista folders, Internet Explorer 7 and several other programs and utilities that come with Vista. Listing 20 things you won't like about Windows Vista was unfortunately all too easy. The question is: Why couldn't Microsoft see this coming?
Upside as well
Despite these seeming faux pas, Microsoft has also managed to add a good deal of benefit and improvement in Windows Vista -- enough good things that it may be even easier to collect 20 things you'll like about Windows Vista. But that's a different article (one you can read almost anywhere). And make no mistake, the new Windows lacks a gotta-have-it feature, unless it's the increased security that protected-mode browsing, built-in spyware protection and the new User Account Controls provide. To my way of thinking, security shouldn't be something you have to pay for. What's more, it seems like Microsoft is building some of the most ambitious security components of Windows Vista not for its customers, but for itself.
Realistically, though, with the worldwide installed base of all versions of Windows at around 850 million, according to Gartner Dataquest, the challenge of making Windows truly secure for the first time is significant. Millions of people for years and years have been logging into Windows with carte blanche rights to change anything in the operating system that can be changed -- a large security vulnerability. Crafting the system to prevent that behavior is nontrivial. So I'm giving Microsoft a pass for having spent a lot of its development efforts on security for this release of Windows, but I'm far less forgiving about the user experience trade-offs that some of those Microsoft security efforts require.
Beyond security, Vista's single best feature is the graphics subsystem and Aero "Glass" user experience it enables (when your hardware supports it). Direct support for advanced 3-D graphics processors, vector-based graphics and fonts, DPI scaling, reflections, transparencies, 3-D movements and a whole range of visual improvements account for the most profound change to Vista. The new integrated desktop search features, the ability to save searches as dynamic collections, and some new data sorting and visualizing options (including "stacking") make up the next most significant feature set.
Another what's-new story about Vista concerns bundled applications. Vista adds several new apps, such as Windows Defender, Sidebar, Calendar, Photo Gallery, DVD Maker, Fax and Scan, and BitLocker full-volume encryption. Significantly upgraded bundled apps include Internet Explorer 7+, Windows Mail (Outlook Express), Media Player 11, Movie Maker, Speech Recognition, Windows Meeting Space (Wi-Fi-based peer presentation/file sharing), automatic hard-drive defragmentation and disk backup.
Additionally, Windows Media Center and Tablet PC Edition are available in several versions of Windows Vista -- more like a feature set than a different version of the operating system. Vista offers both 64- and 32-bit support. Microsoft has also developed a new hybrid "sleep" mode for both desktop and mobile PCs that for the first time makes rapid shutdowns and restarts very easy. While sleeping, mobile computers use very little battery charge. Even when fully powered down, Vista shutdown and start-up times are noticeably faster than those of Windows XP.
The competition
Where does Windows Vista fit among many of the PC-based operating systems of today and the last couple of decades? With Beta 2 running on multiple test units, I feel comfortable predicting that Windows Vista will not outpace Mac OS X Tiger for overall quality and usability. It's hard to beat Apple's top-notch GUI design grafted onto an implementation of Unix variant BSD. Mac OS X has excellent reliability, security and usability. That isn't to say that the user interface wouldn't gain if Apple adopted some other best ideas of the day, but Apple has the best operating system this year, last year and next year. It'll be interesting to see what the company delivers in its 10.5 Leopard version of Mac OS X.
Meanwhile, I'm placing Windows Vista as a distant second-best to OS X. I see Linux and Windows 2000 as being roughly tied another notch or two below Vista, with XP being only a half step better than Win 2000.
20 things you won't like
So, why is the year-old Mac OS X Tiger so much better than Windows Vista, which Microsoft won't even ship before January 2007? It isn't that Apple has put more effort into its operating system; Microsoft has mounted a gargantuan effort on Windows Vista. It's that the two companies have very different goals. I've come to believe that Microsoft has lost touch with its user base.
Instead, Microsoft is focused on casting off its yolk as the industry's security whipping boy. It's also intent on raising the bar to 64-bit architecture, driving the need for advanced video hardware and dual-core motherboards and pushing the RAM standard to 2GB -- all to help spur hardware and software sales over the next several years. Even though there are many great aspects of Windows Vista, taken as a whole, this next one could be Microsoft's first significant operating system failure in quite some time -- at least, as it's configured in Beta 2.
Here are the 20 Vista behaviors and functionalities that could turn off Windows users. Windows newbies may not mind some of these things, but they will definitely try the patience of the millions of Windows users who've got real experience and muscle memory invested in Microsoft's desktop operating system.
20. Minimum video system requirements are more like maximum.
Microsoft's recently announced minimum system requirements aren't so minimal when it comes to video memory. According to Microsoft, the next version of Windows requires 128MB of video memory in order for the up-level Aero Glass features to take effect. As the owner of two expensive Lenovo notebook PCs with 64MB of video RAM, that have supported Aero in the Vista betas just fine so far, I can't help but be a little skeptical about that minimum system requirement.
This issue is magnified by lackluster sales of desktop PCs in recent years and the precipitous rise in sales of notebooks PCs, most of which don't have upgradable video. That means that in order to get Aero, you may well have to buy a whole new notebook PC. Although it may go against their grain from a short-term sales perspective, notebook PC makers that offer a way to upgrade video RAM or graphics cards are likely to be hugely preferred in years to come. With notebooks becoming the primary form factor in many companies and homes, the artificially short half-lives of these computers need to be lengthened.
In a private meeting at WinHEC, I asked ATI execs and engineers whether the 128MB video requirement for Aero was realistic. While acknowledging that Microsoft's system requirements are good for ATI from a sales perspective, they supported Microsoft's requirement because as the number of simultaneously open program windows climbs, they've seen Vista Aero bog down in 64MB of video RAM. While some systems might get away with it, others wouldn't.
My two borderline ThinkPad T43 notebooks with 64MB ATI Mobility X300 video live in a gray area between Aero and Vista Basic video modes. While transparency is turned off by default, Aero is available, and it's possible in Beta 2 to turn transparency back on. The Control Panel > Personalization > Visual Appearance (change your color scheme) > Open classic appearance properties (Appearance settings) dialog gives you the option in machines that support Aero to choose among three video modes: Windows Vista Aero, Windows Vista Basic and Windows Standard.
The Windows Standard mode was added for Vista Beta 2. It provides the basic look and feel of Windows XP but with the video reliability of Aero. (Aero provides for video driver programming at the user level while significantly reducing space available for video driver instruction at the kernel level. That results in a large reduction in the frequency of video-related blue screens, the single largest cause of Windows crashes in previous versions of the operating system.)
So the question is, are Microsoft and ATI correct that I might hit a video brick wall when running my 64MB ATI X300 in full Aero mode with transparency enabled? Time will tell. But I definitely don't like the idea that my recent hardware investments are suddenly out of date. And I very much doubt I'm alone with that feeling.
No wonder Microsoft announced these system requirements earlier than usual. It was probably afraid of a backlash.
If you're wondering whether your computer will run Aero, or Windows Vista at all, download the Windows Vista Upgrade Advisor. When I ran this tool from my T43 ThinkPads, it told me that they would only support Vista Basic, although that isn't quite true in Beta 2.
If you're currently in the market to buy a new computer, check out the difference between Vista Capable and Premium Ready PCs.
19. Aero stratification will cause businesses woe.
The stratification of PCs based on whether they can display Aero will become a headache for IT managers. This problem is likely to grow over time, as more business-class PCs are equipped with 128MB or more of video memory. Most business people have little use for 128MB of video RAM. Although the cool video features in Vista Aero are nice, Apple was able to provide a lot of the same functionality working with my Power PC-based Mac Mini M9687LL/A, which has only 32MB of video RAM. And at this writing, well in advance of Vista's launch, few if any applications actually take any serious advantage of Vista's advanced graphics capabilities. The most likely apps to jump into this are games and entertainment programs -- hardly the stuff most businesses support. And yet, top-level execs, not to mention most other employees, are likely to be hot for this hardware.
It's important to note that Vista Basic isn't a horrible interface at all. But in my tests, it was actually more main-system RAM hungry than Vista Aero. Vista running in Vista Basic on an older PC is noticeably slower in constrained RAM systems than Windows XP. Take the 512MB RAM minimum system requirement seriously. In fact, my personal recommendation is that any machine running any flavor of Vista should have 1GB of RAM.
Bottom line: Aero is going to create a divide between the 128MB video RAM haves and have-nots.
18. User Account Controls $#^ percent!~\!!!.
Vista's new User Account Controls functionality is grounded in a very good idea. For more than 15 years, millions of Windows users have been operating their computers with the doors and windows wide open. Early versions of Windows had no log-in limitation; Windows NT, 2000 and XP have always had log-in-based system privileges, but they're cumbmersome. The trouble has been that using anything other than the default "Administrator" account (or an account with computer-administrator privileges) prevented application installation and many other common activities. While it was possible to configure accounts that had some more advanced privileges, the real-world task of living in such environments was inconvenient at best, and downright annoying and time-consuming at worst.
Microsoft set out to change that in Vista with what it calls User Account Controls (UAC). Given that both Linux and the Mac require users to authenticate their administrator privileges (or, in Linux's case, to log in as root, which requires authentication), this shouldn't be an impossible problem for Microsoft. But somewhere along the way, Microsoft decided to raise the bar even higher.
Vista requires you to create an administrator-class account name as part of installation or first boot, eliminating a major vulnerability. That means, by default, no one is running with the Administrator log-in.
Microsoft went a step further in at least three areas. First, accounts with computer-administrator privileges are no longer equal to the Administrator log-in. When you open something that Vista deems needs protection, you will be prompted with a Continue/Cancel or Allow/Cancel prompt. The only point of this is to prevent malware or hackers from accessing things unchecked. In other words, you become the last line of defense in an endless dress rehearsal for the worst-case scenario. Ugh.
If you're using the Standard log-in, which has fewer privileges, you'll be prompted with a box that requires both your assent and your Administrator password. The Standard log-in is ideal for children or when multiple inexperienced people are sharing a PC. This Standard log-in behavior is just fine, by the way. (Even if I don't adopt Vista myself, my kids will definitely be using it.)
Microsoft's second additional authentication protection in Vista was to go through every process to gauge whether to assign it User Account Controls. This protected list is extremely long in Vista Beta 2, including Control Panels for Windows Firewall, Scanners and Cameras, Parental Controls, iSCSI Initiator, Device Manager, BitLocker drive encryption and Add Hardware. Numerous functions accessed in the System Control Panel (and many others) also cause the User Account Control confirmation dialogs. So many things are, in fact, protected by requiring your OK that it'll drive you batty. And there's no way to say "never ask me this again about this item." If you disliked Windows XP Service Pack 2's version of Internet Explorer 6 because of its many security nag screens, you would absolutely hate Windows Vista Beta 2.
The third added step is more protection for the System Registry and Program Files folders to prevent applications from writing without permission to the Registry or writing settings data into Program Files folders. This is also a good thing, but it creates problems for many applications, which may not successfully install or operate because they expect to be able to write where they are not "supposed" to. And to be fair, Microsoft has asked software makers for years not to write settings data to the Program Files area and to cut way back on writing to the System Registry, which should probably only ever occur during installation. Many ISVs have chosen to ignore those strong guidelines. And it's their applications that might get hung up by Vista's new protections.
To solve that problem, Microsoft is delivering custom "shims" designed to fool installing applications into thinking they're writing to the places where they expect to write, when in fact Microsoft is rerouting that data to a safer location. By working this way, Microsoft adds a significant level of protection from malware that seeks to pass itself off as other programs, or that infests the System Registry, or both. But while this is an excellent work-around, how many shims can Microsoft write for specific applications? It will probably only take care of the most visible, most popular business and entertainment apps. So it's possible that hundreds or even thousands of Windows programs will not work properly with Vista when it ships.
Besides the fact that User Account Controls will almost certainly improve Windows security dramatically, there's another bright spot over the horizon. Those of us who've been complaining to Microsoft that the UAC user experience isn't satisfactory have apparently made some sort of impression. At the Microsoft Windows Vista reviewer's workshop on May 23, Austin Wilson, director for the Windows client, promised that Microsoft will be refining UAC protections to eliminate the number of pop-up boxes Vista will, ah, throw up. He promised that the Release Candidate 1 version of Vista would show improvement in this area.
17. Two words: Secure Desktop.
You have to see this to understand why it was worth its own number on the hit parade of things you won't like about Vista. Secure Desktop is Microsoft's name for a set of dramatic visual cues that serve as a backdrop for the User Account Controls confirmation prompt. The desktop and any open windows surrounding the UAC prompt go noticeably dark. Perhaps even more important to the security involved, with the UAC prompt open and unanswered, you can't access anything at all in Windows. In order to get screenshots of the prompt, I had to run Windows Vista Beta 2 in VMware Workstation 5.5. If you're buying into the full necessity for all aspects of User Account Controls, the Secure Desktop visual cues help you understand why the dialog is completely modal and effectively locks Windows down until a real person sitting at the computer answers the prompt. But when you're seeing it a dozen or more times a day (I'm seeing it a lot more frequently than that because, apparently, I have a habit of opening dangerous things), it gets old real fast.
16. No way to access the Administrator account in Vista Beta 2.
There's no way in Vista Beta 2 to access the Administrator account (at least, not that I could find). Why? Presumably because Microsoft wants to force the issue and require beta testers to work within the constraints of User Access Controls.
Of course, it is possible to turn off User Account Controls. It's what's behind the "Change security settings" option on the opening page of the User Accounts Control Panel. Making it impossible to turn off this feature, without hiding the Administrator log-in, would have been a better choice. I've already seen error messages to the effect that I don't have sufficient user privileges to perform that action about 19 times.
This only heightens the mistake Microsoft may be making in differentiating the Administrator and other computer-administrator-level accounts. While this makes sense from a security perspective, Windows already has an overly complex arrangement of permissions and permissions inheritance. The potential to either prevent you from doing something you have to do to make your system survive, or for users to fiddle with object rights and thereby inadvertently leave their systems vulnerable, is just too great. A complete revision and simplification of object permissions is long overdue for Windows.
15. Some first-blush networking peeves.
Within the first five minutes of checking out Vista's new networking functionality, the first two things you may notice are:
1. You can't access Network Connections by right-clicking the Network icon (previously My Network Places) on the desktop and choosing Properties. Maybe you didn't use a Network icon on the desktop. But if you did, that was the quickest way to get to the network stack.
2. The new network stack adds IPv6 and two network layers aimed at supporting Vista's networking "discovery" features. When it comes to networking, more layers are usually not better. Simpler is usually better. The optional IPv6 networking offered by Microsoft for Windows XP (which was at one point called the "Advanced Networking Pack") was truly an adventure, and not in a good way. This version of IPv6 does not appear to be following in those footsteps. The bad news is that a lot of the promised improvements to Windows networking didn't suddenly materialize with IPv6 support either.
14. Windows peer networking is still balky.
In the main Network folder, where you expect to find shared objects or workstations that offer shared items, the "View Workgroup Computers" option is missing. Since Vista no longer attempts to show actual shared drives, folders, printers and so on, but makes you click through the top level of each connected computer on the network, it would seem that "View Workgroup Computers" option is no longer needed. In fact, this change to begin with visible computers on the network (instead of listing all shared resources Windows has detected in the past) is good, and will cut way down on the number of times you try open a network-shared device and have to wait through a timeout because that computer isn't currently turned on or visible to the network.
But there's a problem. Windows is still balky about displaying newly arrived computers on the network. The problem is especially apparent the first time you boot a new computer on your network. It can only see itself, sometimes for several hours, unless you find a way to give it a swift kick. Despite the new network stack and all the special new networking extras, under it all the same problems exist.
So, while Windows XP's "View Workgroup Computers" isn't needed from a perfect UI perspective, it was a work-around that allowed XP users to supply that swift kick with -- a sort of network refresh. It worked about 70 percent of the time. And when it didn't, your only recourse was to reboot or rebuild your network stack, or both. Ah, the little niceties about Windows peer networking
A tip worth mentioning is that, unlike in Windows XP, if you right-click the Network background and choose Refresh from the context menu, about half the time that will make Windows Vista actively search for network-connected PCs. Because the same setting had no effect in Windows XP, you might not think to try it. The last Vista PC I tried this with required three refresh attempts before the network finally came to life.
I tested the Windows network-connection bug in Vista in a different way. It used to be that you could network with a Windows XP computer that was paused awaiting the entry of a password for initial log-in -- a security vulnerability that it appears Microsoft has fixed in Vista. From one Vista PC, I attempted to make a network connection to a second Vista computer awaiting log-in. The result was an error message saying that the workstation could not be found or was not available. Good, that's as it should be. But when I entered the password on the second machine and allowed it to boot fully, the first machine was still unable to network with the second Vista box. It had tried and failed to network a first time, and was only remembering the failure instead of giving it the old college try. Multiple attempts over a period of 15 minutes all elicited the same results. Meanwhile, other machines on the network had no trouble seeing or accessing the second machine. The first machine required a restart before it would connect with the target PC.
Although some aspects of networking are improved, some are not. For Beta 2, at any rate, Microsoft didn't focus hard enough on the problems in this area. Just adding IPv6 isn't enough. And the old mantra still holds: If at first you don't succeed with Windows networking, reboot, reboot, reboot.
13. Network settings user experience went backwards.
In Vista it takes seven clicks to open the Network Connection Properties dialog to display the network stack. In Windows XP, the same feat took four clicks. Making it harder to find things is never good user-interface design. Burying a dialog or control page because people can get themselves into trouble is also not good design. If you want to prevent someone from using something, make them authenticate and tell them this is an "advanced" feature that can get them into trouble. Moreover, if you want to prevent neophytes from accessing the network stack, make the network run well enough that they never have to.
12. Too many Network Control Panel applets, wizards and dialogs.
There are now four separate Control Panel items -- Network Center, Network File and Printer Sharing, Network List and Network Map -- plus the Network desktop icon, which let you access other computers on the network. But that's not all. There's also "Connect to a network," "Set up a connection or network" (which offers five separate wizards), "Add a device to the network" and "Manage network connections" (giving you access to network icons and the network stack). While many of the new tools have merit individually, collectively they don't hang together, and the user has little sense of process or where to go next. Network Connections is the central point. But the routine is broken and the logic behind the changes isn't self-evident.
11. Display settings have changed for no apparently good reason.
The Display Control Panel, which was conveniently accessed by right-clicking the desktop and choosing Properties in previous versions of Windows, is like the Scarecrow in the Wizard of Oz. Pieces of it are here, there everywhere.
Previously, a neat tabbed dialog handled Themes, Desktop (including desktop icons), Screensaver, Appearance customizations and video card/monitor settings such as resolution and color depth. Apparently, that was too difficult for newbies to grasp. Vista offers the new "Personalization" Control Panel, which bewilderingly places some items on the left side as hyperlinks and others as major settings areas on the right with icons, larger headings and descriptive text. As if the tabbed dialog didn't have enough stuff, Personalization adds Sound Effects and Mouse Pointers. It sounds like it's a good organization, but the net effect is that there are more clicks and more clicking around to find the settings that were once clustered together -- where they belong. Of all the makeovers in Vista, this isn't the worst one. But it is the first one you'll likely notice and be less than thrilled about.
10. Where are the file menus?
OK, this is smart. Take a primary interface structure in use for more than 20 years and already known to hundreds of millions of computer users worldwide, and hide it from them. This appears to be a Microsoft-wide strategy, since Office 2007 doesn't just hide the File, Edit, View and other menus -- it removes them entirely from its three biggest applications. What, are they nuts?
Apparently. Because while Vista doesn't entirely dispose of these menus, it does dump them from many single-purpose applets, all folder windows and, ridiculously, Internet Explorer 7+. While about 90 percent of the menu items from the old main menu are now available somewhere on drop-down menus connected to icons mounted on the same bar that tabs must squeeze into, the icons aren't particularly obvious. Microsoft has, as a result, remade the main menu structure on text menus that drop from icons. What's up with that? How is that improved design? It isn't. The toolbars themselves are space-constrained. The whole thing is a mess. The Address bar puts Refresh and Stop on one side of the URL field and Back and Forward on the other side, increasing mouse travel required to go between them. Why? Change for change's sake is what it seems.
You can turn the main menus back on in Internet Explorer 7+ by clicking the gear-wheel icon, choosing the Toolbars submenu and clicking the Classic Menu submenu item. To turn file menus back on in folder windows, open the Folder Options Control Panel, click the View tab and click the first item, "Always show Classic Menus."
9. Windows Defender Beta 2 is buggy.
I admire Windows Defender's real-time spyware/malware monitor because it gets the job done unobtrusively. But the Vista Beta 2 version of Defender, like the public Windows Defender Beta 2 release for Windows XP, is buggy. The Vista version's bugs are, however, in different places. Where the public Beta 2 of Defender for XP had significant installation issues and user interface controls that didn't work properly, the Vista version's woes center on scheduled scans. Even though Defender comes preconfigured for a daily 2 a.m. scan for spyware, the scan doesn't always run automatically; and when it fails, it fails silently. After three days, Defender gives you an error message that you haven't scanned your computer. A quick trip into the Defender settings area shows that, yes, it's scheduled to scan at 2 a.m., and that no, it hasn't run its scan. The problem has occurred on two of the four Vista installations I'm testing (I checked power management, and the machine was set to never sleep or hibernate on its own The machine was, in fact, left on.) Hopefully this will get figured out before Vista ships.
8. Problems without solutions.
Vista Build 5384, the official Beta 2, was the one tested most extensively for this story. I also examined Build 5381. Although Beta 2 is far more functional and performs more quickly than the last widely offered pre-release of Vista (the February CTP, or Build 5308), it's worth nothing that 5384 is less reliable. That should come as no surprise. A lot of code that was merely a placeholder in the February CTP is fully operational in Beta 2. The Johnny-come-lately Vista features and functionalities haven't been tested as thoroughly as other modules.
Microsoft's new Problem Reports and Solutions utility, which relies on Vista's welcome built-in diagnostics tools, keeps track of device driver woes and some software failure events. The tool automates the process of searching for online-based solutions to Windows problems. So far, I have yet to see it really do anything helpful for me. But it has logged numerous problems with all of my test machines. And I suspect its main purpose is to help Microsoft evaluate device driver problems. At this point, it's hard to get past the fact that of the 21 problems recorded by Problem Reports and Solutions on one machine and 16 on another, not a single solution has been found so far. I expect that experience to change after Vista ships. But the issues, and the fact that there are no solutions, aren't confidence-inspiring.
On one machine, Windows attempted to install a ThinkPad customization utility and didn't complete the process. Although it is listed in Vista's version of Add or Remove Programs (now the Programs Control Panel, the Installed Programs option), Vista was unable to uninstall it.
You expect problems like these with beta software. But experience teaches that if they're not pointed out in the Beta 2 time frame, they tend to become the norm when the product ships.
7. Lack of Windows Sidebar Gadgets.
As I write this, there's a grand total of 21 Gadgets available for Vista's Sidebar. There are 280 Gadgets available for Windows Live, but they aren't compatible with Sidebar. Microsoft is considering some sort of unified Gadget model, but that appears to be something down the road. While the overall design of the Sidebar is excellent, and it should be generally easy for programmers and Web developers to writer Sidebar Gadgets, so far not many have been created. With the exception of a stock ticker, a currency conversion tool, RSS feed viewer, an analog clock, a calculator and a notepad, Vista Gadgets are primarily trinkets, games and eye candy. So, right at this moment, the Windows Sidebar is pretty useless. In comparison, Google Gadgets and Plugins for Google Desktop Sidebar number almost 300, and there are nearly 2,000 Dashboard Widgets for Apple's Mac OS X Tiger.
6. Media Center isn't all there and falls flat.
I have no problems with the way Microsoft has implemented Media Center in Windows Vista Beta 2, except for one little detail: On my three-week-old Media Center test machine, the act of launching any kind of live TV in Vista Media Center brings down hard the device driver for the PC's ATI X1400 128MB/256MB video card, which fully supports Aero Glass. The picture displays for a split second and then the screen goes black, which was not exactly the transition I was hoping for. The same PC displays live TV perfectly when launched in Windows XP Media Center 2005 Edition. The drivers for the TV tuner and remote control and other Media Center goodies configured impressively and rapidly under Windows Vista. But if it doesn't display TV, well, what's the point?
Other reviewers have complained about the color scheme and the increased use of horizontal (left and right button) controls, but I actually prefer those minor changes. They result in fewer clicks in some cases, and I always prefer fewer clicks.
The important issues with Media Center are that it needs more content, should be easier to install and configure, and must be 100 percent reliable. Not all Media Center PCs are created equal, either -- something that the average PC buyer may not be fully aware of. The marriage of two complex areas, Windows PCs and consumer entertainment, doesn't make either area easier to deal with. So far as I can tell, Vista's Media Center doesn't raise the bar on anything significantly. It appears to be more of a check-off item than a big selling point for Vista buyers. I'll look at it again in the next major prerelease version of Vista, though.
Update: As this story was nearing completion, I got wind of new ATI video drivers for Windows Vista Beta 2. After installing them, the video device driver stopped crashing, but live TV still showed lots of dropouts and inadvertent freezes, looking like the signal was Internet-video streamed instead of arriving via my cable company's digital coax.
5. Faulty assumption on the Start Menu.
In its supreme state of being, Microsoft knows precisely what's best for you. It knows that because its well-implemented new Sleep mode uses very little electricity and also takes only two or three seconds to either shut down or restart, you want to use this mode to "turn off" your computer, whether you realize it or not. It wants to teach you about what's best. It wants to make it harder for you to make a mistake. That's why it crafted the Shutdown area at the lower right-hand corner of the Start menu to make the large red Sleep button and the large blue Lock buttons very prominent. Meanwhile, the button that offers a pop-up menu with options like Switch User, Log Off, Restart and Shutdown is a teeny-tiny little arrow hanging off the edge of the Start menu. They know you'll find it there, but they're making it just a little harder for you to access by making the surface area so small that it's harder to click. So long as Microsoft gets you to do what it wants you to do, it doesn't matter that it's torturing the user experience in the process.
4. Installation takes forever.
The Vista setup routine is something of a disappointment. The one big improvement is that it gets most of the user inputs out of the way by placing them at the front end of the process. That means you can get it going and walk away. That's a good thing, because it still takes a long, long time to complete. Go for a walk, take the kids out to dinner, do the crossword puzzle. You've got time.
The Windows Vista Setup routine. -(Click image to see larger view)
Unlike some other reviewers, I had no problems with installation on four separate machines, including a late 2005 Lenovo T43, a brand-new Dell Inspiron E1505, two 2003-era 3-GHz desktop computers and a virtualized instance with VMware Workstation 5.5. But note also that Beta 2 is not the time to perform an upgrade installation on a computer you care about. Or, if you do, perform the upgrade in a virtual machine or on a PC whose operating system you've backed up for later restoration. If you're going to do a clean install, there's no need to wipe the drive; dynamically partition it and install Vista cleanly into the new partition. Your only hassle is drivers, but that's actually been a strength of Vista the last few builds. I've had very little device trouble with old or new PCs. All told, I've installed various builds on more than a dozen machines.
There are five essential packages of Windows Vista: Home Basic, Home Premium, Business, Enterprise and Ultimate. Tablet PC functionality, which was previously a separate edition of Windows XP, is a significantly improved feature set available in all but the Home Basic version of Vista. Media Center functionality, which was also a separate edition of XP, is similarly available in the Home Premium and Ultimate versions of Vista. The groupings make sense after you pore over them, comparing features in depth. But at first blush, it can be a very confusing process to figure out which version is best for your needs.
Version confusion could be a very real issue for retail buyers. Microsoft confirmed to me recently that Vista Business will be sold in stores, which means that potentially you could see four separate versions of Vista on store shelves, as well as both upgrade and full-install variations. That's a lot of SKUs for bricks-and-mortar retailers to stock; don't expect to find them all in many places besides online stores.
The chart that follows, Comparison of Selected Features in Windows Vista Versions, may help to clarify some of the trade-offs between Vista versions.
The Home Basic version lacks Media Center, Tablet PC, Windows Aero support, Windows DVD Maker, Windows Fax and Scan, Windows Movie Maker for HD, and other features for corporate settings and backup. The plain truth is this: Don't buy a new PC or notebook with Home Basic. And if your existing hardware won't support anything but Home Basic, there's little reason to upgrade -- especially in a business setting. But even home users stand to gain very little from a Home Basic upgrade.
Home Premium is a perfectly reasonable version of Vista for home users. It's not the power user's version, but it's more than serviceable for advanced digital media and gaming pursuits.
The Business and Enterprise versions of Vista lack Media Center support and many of the digital media features. Most of what they add in is aimed at IT manageability, but a few features -- such as Fax and Scan, scheduled user data backup, Windows Shadow Copy, system image-based backup and recovery, and the ability to host Remote Desktop sessions -- probably belong in all the Vista versions. To get those features while also keeping Media Center and digital media features, you have to move all the way up to the top of the list and spring for Windows Vista Ultimate.
It'll probably come as no surprise that while Vista Business will be perfectly fine in enterprise settings, home and small business users who possess the latest and greatest hardware with media features will gravitate to the most expensive version of Vista.
2. Price.
If Windows Vista Ultimate is the version of Vista many of us are going to want, how much are we going to have to pay for it? Microsoft hasn't announced pricing yet, but the fact that home users who want digital media features and Remote Desktop hosting in Ultimate means that, for this reviewer anyway, Vista Ultimate will be the requisite version for his fleet of home PCs. You have to figure that it's likely to be more expensive than any previous version of Windows XP. Windows Ultimate is the superset of Home Premium and Enterprise.
So how much is that? Although no one pays this much for Windows XP Professional, the full version of the product lists for US$299 (the upgrade version's suggested list price is $199). So would it be surprising for Windows Vista Ultimate to have a suggested retail price of $329, $339 or $349? Don't bet against it. I don't see Microsoft effectively lowering the price of Vista Home Premium (akin to XP Home) or Vista Business/Enterprise (akin to XP Pro) -- especially when it's merging Tablet PC and Media Center features in many of these lesser versions.
By the same token, Windows Vista Home Basic is a lesser version than XP Home. Might it sell for a bit less money? Full XP Home's suggested list price is $199, with the upgrade edition costing $99. Might it sell for $69, $79 or $89? I'm guessing that $89 is the lowest it would go as a list price. But one thing you can be sure of, if it does sell for less than XP Home, low-end consumer OEM PC makers are going to get serious about equipping new PCs with it, especially given the fact that Microsoft's Windows Anytime Upgrade will let consumers upgrade to Home Premium or Ultimate via an online purchase and download.
Windows Vista Starter is designed for emerging home-computer markets, and it has two or three primary business models. Microsoft has already tested a pay-as-you-go business model in Brazil that allows people to buy a computer in installments. They put $200 or $300 down and bring home a new Vista Starter PC. To use it, they purchase cards in denominations like 20, 30 or 50 (which correspond to monetary units, such as dollars). The cards allow them to use the computer for so many hours. In this way, they pay off the computer and eventually own it once they've purchased enough cards. Microsoft and its partners, including AMD, are planning another test of Vista Starter for India in the near future.
1. Little originality, sometimes with a loss of elegance.
Everywhere you look, Microsoft has copied things that Apple has offered for quite some time in OS X. The User Account Control features, especially with the Vista Standard log-in, look a lot like Apple's user interface design. Too bad Microsoft doesn't let you lock and unlock things (leaving those settings permanent) the way Apple does. More than 15 years later, Microsoft is still following Apple in operating system design and bundled materials. With some notable exceptions (including IE7+, where it copied Mozilla, and the Windows Sidebar, where it bests Apple, Google and everyone in user-interface design), Microsoft is belaboring the point by reinventing the wheel, often with an overall reduction in productivity and usability.
I have no problem with Microsoft copying Apple's or any other company's best interface designs. We all win when that happens, and I wish Apple would steal the best things Microsoft does right back. What's really strange is when a company lifts good ideas and makes them worse, not better.
The bitter end
After more than 15 years reviewing Windows operating systems, I didn't just suddenly begin hating Microsoft or Windows. (Although I have to admit, OS X is looking better and better of late.) Windows Vista has plenty of good aspects to recommend it. In a future article, Computerworld will make plain the many good things about Windows Vista. When the product ships, we'll also make some final recommendations on the new operating system.