Microsoft Windows Vista Review Including Benchmarks vs Win95
Personal Reflections on Microsoft’s New Vision… in three parts.
Microsoft Windows – Vista – First Thoughts
I have now been working with Vista for a while, and here are my personal impressions.
- Looks cool
- Windows XP… SP3</li>
- User Account Control (UAC) – DOA. This was really funny when I tried to un-install some software that I had installed – it wouldn’t let me. It said: Check with System Administrator. BUT I AM THE SYSTEM ADMINISTRATOR! you whacked out piece of junk, and I have no idea why you won’t let me un-install this software. I had to turn off UAC, reboot, so I could un-install.
- Everything is slightly different (kind of like the transition from 2000 to XP). In my opinion, this works against Microsoft – I now am immune to distinctions in the UI, since I transition from 98/2000/XP/Vista/Linux distros/Mac OS, etc. So there is nothing special about MS Windows that I am used to, e.g. no loyalty or comfort that makes me resist something different. Just recreating the UI to be different is like painting the house so no one sees the cracks. The reality is that the cracks are still there.
- Security – I guess better, but more annoying, and from everything I’ve read, not a whole lot better than XP SP2
- Code signing – took a few days and $400 / 2 years, but I can now sign our code – whoopee!
- You get immune to the cool effects pretty quickly, and they do nothing to improve your performance within the system.
- The search in the start menu is OK, but I’ve experienced stuff where it doesn’t find things I know I have, so I had to tweak search settings – there is nothing more annoying than MS making these decisions on what can be searched – yes, yes, I know it isn’t my computer anymore.
- I would like to completely ignore Vista entirely, but I have no choice. The things we do for money…
- My Intel Duo core system compiles really fast – if nothing else, I like the hardware…
Second Thoughts
This is from slashdot - very accurate & funny…
There’s a much, much bigger hole than any programmer could possibly exploit: The annoyance factor.
Last night, I restored my old XP partition after figuring I’d give Vista a shot for just a couple of days. You know, just to experience it myself instead of taking other people’s word for what it’s like.
The theme of Vista seems to be simple: Annoy the hell out of he end user. You want to run an application, is that okay? You want to copy a file, is that okay? You want to change your desktop background, is that okay? You want to copy text from IE7, is that okay? You want to delete an old text file, is that okay? You want to paste text into a form field in IE7, is that okay? The list goes on and on. Almost every action in Vista is actually compose of two separate actions: the one you want to do, and the confirmation to do it.
After getting Windows Vista installed, I took an hour or so to configure my personal settings and install a couple of applications. I had to acknowledge somewhere between 50 and 100 dialog boxes asking me if it was okay to do what I was doing. No, I’m not exaggerating.
Now, I’m a very experienced computer user, and I’ve worked for over a decade supporting PCs, servers, networks, and so on. Yes, I know, I could disable UAC if I want to, but that kind of defeats the point of Vista’s so-called beefed up security.
Even I became so numb to clicking OK in two short days that I wouldn’t think twice about it. You want to move that shortcut on your start menu, is that okay? You want to install the Pwnzjoo virus, is that okay? You want to send your bank account numbers to Nigeria, is that okay? Yes, yes, yes, dammit!
If Microsoft wants to really get serious about security, they have to get it through their heads that it’s not about locking everything down and popping up prompt after prompt after prompt to the user. It’s about being smart, letting the user do normal things without interference or interruption, and having the level of alerts match the danger of what’s being done.
As it is, Vista cries wolf so often that when the real wolves show up, I’d be surprised if any user, newbie or guru, listens.
Third Thoughts: Standing Still – Faster Than Ever
I had a few minutes to kill waiting for a meeting, so I thought I’d verify the boot speed issue.
IBM 380ED Laptop
Pentium: Blazing at 166Mhz
RAM: a whopping 32MB
OS: Win 95 B
Intel special (motherboard/processor)
Core Duo: 6400 at 2.13Ghz
RAM: 2 GB
OS: Vista business
I realized some of the boot time is the system hardware itself, and the Vista box initializes significantly slower than the laptop (part of this is a SATA raid option that needs to be on due to some quirk in the Intel motherboard – when off, the hard drive LED doesn’t work – so I had to turn it back on, but this adds several seconds to the whole startup cycle, and has nothing to do with Vista). So I timed the 2 booting up side by side once past the hardware initialization and you know what? Just about the same, both getting to the logon prompt, and also hitting enter once the password is in to get to the desktop.
So in 12 years, and a 1200% increase in performance, you still wait just as long to use your computer. This is the kind of progress that makes your jaw drop…
Kermit Komm – CTO/Innovation Management Group, Inc., Contributing Editor
