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I wonder if playing Minesweeper is effective against boss-inflicted stress

Dunno, I find that game to be a stress-inducing process in and of itself. I wouldn't be lining up to recommend it to PTSD patients either for obvious reasons (even though in Vista you can optionally swap them out for flowers.

Are you honestly trying to pass of "Safe Delete" and "Start Menu Actions" as items that Microsoft cut from Vista? If so, you probably missed the joke.

http://shellrevealed.com/blogs/shellblog/archive/2006/10/09/Features-that-didn_2700_t-make-the-cut.aspx

While playing a rousing game of "Mimesweeper" does sound like fun, I don't think that incorporating a TECO prompt into the start menu is a terribly useful thing, unless you are some kind of masochist.

How freaking stupid can this get? The person that wrote the content at the link you provided knows NOTHING about what they are talking about, confusing terms, and not even 'getting' the context of what they are trying to argue. And you post links to technical articles you apparently don't even understand or you would realize how off track you were.

Here try this...
Instead of 'Volume Shadow Copy' introduced in WindowsXP/2K or 'System Restore' introduced in WinME and effectively in WindowsXP; Go look up 'Previous Versions', released in Windows 2003 Server and turned on by default on Windows Vista.

Previous Versions is NOT System Restore, and it is NOT Volume Shadow Copies.
http://technet2.microsoft.com/windowsserver/en/library/cfddaf10-24fa-4d6d-a34d-cfb84c5223781033.mspx?mfr=true

http://shellrevealed.com/photos/windows_vista/picture123.aspx

System Restore is an Application/OS restore tool, something OS X doesn't even offer.
http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/using/helpandsupport/learnmore/systemrestore.mspx
FTA: (System Restore does not affect your personal data files!)

Volume Shadow Copies are a way to copy or backup 'in use' files, in basic terms.
And then go re-read the Volume Copy Service link 'you' provided, as it is another tool that OS and developers use, and is NOTHING the user ever deals with...

This is freaking stupid that Mac users can't even discuss the proper terminology or see a Vista user right click on a folder or document and bring up a 'time-line' of the folder and files, just like freaking time-machine on OS X.

Additionally...
Previous Versions is 'transparent' to applications unlike OS X that needs applications to be aware if they use 'special data stores', requires NO setup, and is working from the moment Vista is installed or the PC is turned on.

Previous Versions can be accessed in every Folder or File/Open/Save dialog box for every application running on Vista, all the way back to programs from Windows 3.1, and it works equally well on all of them.

A user can go back in the Vista Timeline on any file, folder, data store, etc. and all folders and files can be opened to view previous times, be dragged and dropped to the current time-frame.

Vista Previous Version also uses advanced FS level file and differential points so data is NOT stored 'as redundantly' as it is on OS X.

If OS X could have pulled off adding ZFS, they could have made time machine MORE like Vista with FS level snapshots instead of having to backup the files and folders to achieve a similar function.

Sadly, OS X's FS does not have the capabilities of ZFS or NTFS to do this, so data has to be actually backed up for Time Machine to work.

On Vista, there is NO Overhead of backing up 'Previous Versions' since it does work at the FS level. (See Vista doesn't technically have to copy the data each time a change is made, due to the way NTFS works. Go read more on this and ZFS to see why it is the only other FS that supports these types of transactions.)

Now I admit the OS X Time Machine interface is far more cooler than the Vista 'list' interface, but it is less functional, adds system overhead to maintain the backups,and wastes far more drive space.

So the functionality DOES EXIST in Windows, first appeared in the Windows 2003 Server Beta back in 2002, and has been around doing what Apple is just now catching up to in a less efficient way 5 years later. (4 Years if you count the Release date of Windows 2003 and not the Beta previews in 2002.)

Now take this information back to your Mac forums, and tell them they gave you crappy information and they have no idea what the hell they are talking about when it comes to comparing OS X and Vista.

Microsoft tried that late in Vista development at the Shell: Revealed forums. We voiced many concerns, only a few of which got any attention, much of it hand-waving. No one from MS has posted there in a while now, so users have stopped too. A post about the new backup program, sdclt.exe and how much functionality it lacks compared to the old one, ntbackup.exe, was even deleted.

Someone at Microsoft thought it would be a good idea to get some public feedback on Vista development. Late, but good. But then, they didn't listen to our feedback. Some of the stuff we brought up should have been pretty easy to fix, but was blown off instead.

Microsoft tried that late in Vista development at the Shell: Revealed forums. We voiced many concerns, only a few of which got any attention, much of it hand-waving. No one from MS has posted there in a while now, so users have stopped too. A post about the new backup program, sdclt.exe and how much functionality it lacks compared to the old one, ntbackup.exe, was even deleted.

Someone at Microsoft thought it would be a good idea to get some public feedback on Vista development. Late, but good. But then, they didn't listen to our feedback. Some of the stuff we brought up should have been pretty easy to fix, but was blown off instead.

Or, in the alternative, that it could be "rooted" in a subdirectory, so you had c:\vista\windows, c:\vista\Documents and Settings, c:\vista\Program Files, etc. Obviously this wouldn't work with every single file but if done right it would eliminate a lot of confusion and it would leave the XP installation intact and bootable.

Vista upgrading is, in fact, similar to that. Upgrading will rename your old Windows and Program Files directory to something else, and Vista clean installs on the partition. Afterwards your old settings and apps are "migrated" over to your new installation. The XP installation isn't intact and bootable, but I believe you can uninstall Vista to restore it. Also, the installer can perform primitive partitioning, including extending and shrinking partitions (but not moving them around).

Note that this is because the backup application uses the shadow copy service to take a snapshot of the system

Also note that you can download the old backup program for Vista Business / Ultimate, IIRC.

If you are in mouse only mode: Just click on the name of the parent folder in the address bar.

If you are in keyboard only mode: ALT+UP ARROW

For a comprehensive list of keyboard shortcuts in Vista you can take a look at:

http://shellrevealed.com/blogs/shellblog/archive/2 006/10/16/Do-things-faster-with-Keyboard-Shortcuts .aspx

You humorously list Wordpad = $FREE, but the functionality is less than in XP. You can no longer view DOC files in Wordpad.

This is the "authorative" source which is listed in Wikipedia on the Vista page:
http://shellrevealed.com/forums/thread/5670.aspx

That's all well and good, but what features exactly were taken away in Vista that were found in XP?

• You can't actually select the files you want to back up. You have to pick an ambigious category of files or back up the entire hard disk.
• You can't backup EFS encrypted files, either in their raw format or unencrypted. NTBackup could archive the encrypted form, for use with seperately archived keys.
• It's unclear if it backs up extended attributes, alternate file streams, security descriptors, reparse points, and hardlinks.
• It can't back up registry hives, except in a full-system backup.
• The scheduling options are much less flexible than before.
• You can only include local (not network) files in an archive.
• The help is awful: there are at least two different hyperlink-in-dialog style help links that both go to a single generic FAQ that doesn't actually include the linked questions.
• You can only back up to DVD or network, or for non-full backups: CD. Nothing else. You can't put the archive on another hard disk. NTBackup let you put the archive anywhere. The question of why you can't use a HD is one of the unanswered question links.
• You need admin access to back up your OWN files. Another unanswered question link pretends to offer the rationale for this.
• Vista backup doesn't seem to have any command line support. NTBackup had tons.

Now THAT is a blast from the past. Check out the the drive drop down, and the "Newtork..." button. Must be from Windows 95 at best - maybe even Windows 3.1?

Definitely Windows 3.1, possibly even Windows 3.0.

The reason it's still there is explained here. Basically, because "no-one" ever uses it and the "proper" method for adding fonts is drag & drop into the Fonts folder.

I've criticized some of theese on MS Shell Blog Post Images(announced on slashdot as well), even giving example. I've got response only from the other guys like you and me, which were pissed off by the lame GUI design. MS didn't post any response. I was loosing my time by starting Photoshop and giving them an alternative. Here is one of the topics

> ...the choice between a machine with your favorite operating system or a machine with your most hated current OS but with access to the internet.
> I must admit that I would take the machine that had the connection to the internet regardless of what current OS it had on it.
> So, not only is Windows no longer relevant...

Bad conclusion. Hypotheticals like this mean nothing because no one has to make that decision. It's like asking "If you had to be, would you rather be blind or deaf?" and then concluding, from the fact that most people chose 'deaf,' that people want to be deaf. That is obviously not the case.

Am I the only one who remembers Netscape's bold proclamation that they'd reduce windows to an unimportant collection of poorly-written device drivers? Yeah, that worked out well for them. Windows isn't going anywhere anytime soon. I can't believe this Web 2.0 thing--we are literally reliving the 1996-2000 period. Coming up next on Slashdot: an article talking about how Internet Appliances (like 3Com's Audry, the iOpener, Web TV, etc.) are going to be the Next Big Thing.

I also remember the idea a few years ago that the "Windows tax" would become a prohibitively large portion of a computer's cost and no one would pay $300 for a computer when Windows was $100 of that cost. Well, here we are in 2006, and I can go to dell.com any day of the week and buy a computer with Windows (and a flat-panel monitor) for $349. People don't seem to mind. MS makes money at a rate most people can't imagine--I think I heard their profit is a billion dollars a month--so they can just make sweeter and sweeter deals to OEMs to keep their software loaded. No sense mentioning that most business-class computers (their bread and butter) cost about twice that. Basically, MS has a HUGE amount of inertia working for them. In most cases, the headaches of moving away from Windows more than offset the minor cost savings made by going to a free alternative.And as cool as the Web (1.0, 2.0, and the rest) is, people still use binary apps day in, day out. Show me a web app that can burn a CD or make a complex spreadsheet (not just a fancy list, I mean a REAL, complicated, densely-formatted spreadsheet like most companies produce by the hundreds every day) and we'll talk. Meanwhile, the masses will be placated with the fancy new version of Minesweeper and Bill Gates will continue to have more money than he can spend.

and what's with the single tab display properties? What's the point of a tab bar, when you have always one single tab in it? We'll never know.

and what's with the single tab display properties? What's the point of a tab bar, when you have always one single tab in it? We'll never know.

Bit of a contradiction there, but I can see the argument for both. 'File' has become the generic application menu, e.g. web browsers - which only deal with files in a limited way - have a file menu, so does basically any other app. It's just a badly named menu entry. As ever OS X gets this right (the first menu entry is named after the app).

To be fair to MS, one is the official useability guidelines, the other is an informal blog, it's probably better than MS not allowing their staff to blog incase such contradictions come out.

Talking about reform, I find the most illogical thing of user interfaces is the menubar.. how do you exit? Go to "File". Where are the options? Under "Tools".. why can't somebody offer a totally new way of making the menu. Start with "Program", where you have "Options" and "About" (maybe "Help" too), then "Document" or "File", and then "Edit", etc.. We're so used to File -> Exit that we stop thinking how illogical such a construct is... exit the file?

Personally I found this part far more interesting:

Also, Expose becomes less useful as the number of Windows increases. This is more of an issue in Windows than the mac because in general users have more applications open on a Windows machine than a Mac.

This mirrors my experiences between Windows and OS X (and I use both regularly). I typically have *far* more applications/windows running/open on Windows than I do in OS X. Much of this has to do with OS X's overall GUI sluggishness and relatively poor multitasking (which isn't especially good to start with and degrades rapidly as load increases), but it's equally because of the awful models for switching between apps/windows. Expose certainly improved the situation immensely, but it still becomes unusable due to clutter with large numbers of windows.

If you dig around the site, you'll find this answer from one of their usability people:

Expose actually does not have great usability results. The primary problem is that the position that the windows are placed in is not predictable. Users have to search the desktop to see where Expose decided to place the app they are looking for. Many Mac users continue to rely on the Dock and Apple-TAB to switch tasks. Flip 3D keeps the windows in their front to back order and aligns them on a known curve. Most users who know about Flip 3D use it as their primary task switching mechanism.

(More of his answer is here: http://shellrevealed.com/forums/thread/602.aspx )

So apparently it's based on (who'da thunk it) research. It might be flawed research of course, but they did what they did conciously...

From my own limited playing with Flip3D I can actually see what's on the screens... Not all of them, but enough to see what's going on.

I couldn't believe when I read that...

"Some folks I talk to say that the UI is just as important as performance and system stability. Others say performance, stability and security come first.

For me - the UI is just as important as performance, stability, security and everything else."

http://shellrevealed.com/blogs/externalnews/archiv e/2006/09/19/So-just-how-important-is-the-UI_3F00_ .aspx

http://www.mstechtoday.com/2006/09/18/so-just-how- important-is-the-ui/

That explains *many* things.

http://shellrevealed.com/photos/blog_images/images /584/original.aspx

Everytime I see this I can't help but chuckle. I can just imagine a family with their Kitchen, Bathroom and Basement Computers. I can just see the kitchen computer sending a message to the bathroom computer telling the person in there that their microwave burrito is ready...