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Windows Vista Build 5231 Review
An anonymous reader writes "Microsoft has just released a new build for Windows Vista and it looks like Microsoft has made quite a few graphical changes. "This is possibly the only application with more anticipation surrounding it than Internet Explorer 7, if not Vista itself. We wonder if Microsoft would bundle Windows Media Player 11 with Vista exclusively or would it be available for download separately for Windows XP as well. It most certainly will end up looking a lot better (graphically) than most music players out there, iTunes included. Although it appears to look pretty straightforward, the interface has changed drastically, which makes it far more attractive than Windows Media Player 10 as well as competing applications."
I can't even read TFA if I wanted to!
Microsoft again proves it knows how to sell a product. Not that graphical changes/updates are a bad thing - far from it, I like my eye-candy as do most. The most important thing about it, however, is that looks sell.
Now maybe since the thing looks prettier, they'll start working on adding some revolutionary functionality. I think that consumers valuing function over appearance are the minority of those who will be spending money, however.
You can fault Microsoft for not being much of a software company if you wish, but their business/marketing/money-making talent is second to none.
Quote:
We have never seen any WMP run this smooth especially on a beta release. While this might not mean much to anybody, it's a step in the right direction for Microsoft. Only thing we need to check now is how smoothly it runs while running a plethora of other applications in the end.
One thing we would like to mention is that our library had 1000+ songs, but there were no hiccups while scrolling through the list. It was almost like scrolling down Google's search results, which is very smooth and hassle-free. This could be due to implementation of Microsoft's new graphics technologies, namely XAML and WGF 2.0. Needless to say, this is definitely something to get excited about, since we can clearly remember the times when we launched WMP 10 and it would get stuck at the guide page, thereby making the user experience terrible.
(needed) manages your albums
(pretty) gets album cover to display so you can visualize
(good) manages your preferences/statistics (you can see what you are listening to)
(pretty) presents those informations in an aesthetic way
(good) or just gets minimized to the systray
(good) all operations are two to three clicks away.
It's better to be the foot on the boot than the face on the pavement. ~~ tkx Kadin2048
How much do you need your media player to do beyond playing media?
If i wouldn't have gotten a mac I don't know if I would have ever gone past winamp 2.x
Well, as far as video goes I'm more than happy with Media Player Classic. It's basicly a WMP6.4(!) clone but able to play DVDs+++. No skinning, in fact 99.9% of the time I use it is in fullscreen playback with no UI at all. Haven't seen any feature in WMP7-10 that would make me change back.
As far as music goes, I know a lot of people have much more desire to organize and sort and do multiple playlists and ratings and even eyecandy while listening to music. Both Winamp, WMP and iTunes have made a lot of progress since Winamp 2.x here. I'm mostly like you, not really in the market but it's definately there.
Kjella
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
Evidently the future of UIs is flashy junk puked everywhere you click.
That's exactly the problem. You keep posting msft "news" and keep the buzz going and nobody ever thinks about the alternatives.
... well clearly that keeps people focused on MSFT products which is exactly what they want.
How about ya just ignore MSFT like they've been ignoring their customers [hey, where are the open standards compliance? How about a proper optimizing C compiler? etc...] and it'll all be good. If you create a buzz around a BETA build that only MSDN subscribers can access
It's called "obsession" for a reason.
Tom
Someday, I'll have a real sig.
You'll find all of the pictures here
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Does this version have the Media Centre Shell in it? I was under the impression that Vista would incorporate the eHome Shell from Windows XP Media Center Edition, but the Vista Beta 1 release didn't seem to have it.
What is this about Steve and chairs....I have seen it everywhere lately, and I don't get it
Those screenshots don't really look like a program to me. Are you sure it's not a powerpoint presentation or something? Maybe they merged WMP in powerpoint... Really what's so difficult in making a player with one big playlist and the usual start/stop/volume buttons? I use xmms on linux and an older winamp version for windows, default skin, it has just the things I need an I can make is at big/small as I want.
molmod.com - computing tips from a molecular modeling
Vista is the first time MS is paying attention to graphics (just look at all the "pretty" stuff from transparent windows to screen shots on the taskbar). They are making software improvements across spectrum; Windows Media Player 11, IE 7 has really cool things that even firefox doesn't (e.g. being able to see all tabs at once), the network improvements are awesome (e.g. you can change the order that things are bound to the NIC; IPv6 before IPv4), and tons of other things. They are including spyware/virus tools with Vista so many of the current problems would be caught early. That is if they even can get on th OS, since users aren't running as admins by default.
Most importantly the development tools MS is providing are awesome! Visual Studio 2005 is really easy to use, and very powerful. Anyone who has seen sparkle knows that it's pretty sweet. Before you start screaming flash, you are right, they were first to market, but sparkle is better for developers, much better. Not to mention the 3d rendering tools alone blows flash out of the water.
But, here is why apple should be scared. MS is taking away every reason you should use OSX, with the exception "I hate MS", which Linux can cover. Like it or not, apple has only been able to stay a float because the graphic community has been unflinching behind them, but that is starting to change. XP couldn't support them, Vista can. While the OSX "users" are still backing OSX (for now; the tablet pc is really appealing to creative's because of the pressure sensitivity), traditional Apple developers are starting to stray. Quark is starting to hedge bets on Vista and MS's XML model, take a look at some news articles on their site www.quark.com. Third party software developers have always been Microsoft's strength. Vista has made it really easy for developers, while OSX still isn't.
MS needs one desktop OS competitor to be able to hold off monopoly accusations and say "people have other options", and that is why they haven't gone after Apple's market. Because of Linux Microsoft doesn't need Apple's OS around anymore (remember the 150million they gave apple to stay in business in the late 90's). Because Linux exists MS will now start focusing on apple's market. MS can't kill Linux because it is a hobby OS. For the most part people maintain it for free, on their own time, they are passionate about it, and it's their baby. They won't let it die. OSX on the other hand doesn't have that kind of story. Apple knows this and that is why they are transitioning to Intel, just in case.
I predict OSX won't survive this round with MS and Apple becomes a premium hardware supplier. Say bubye to OSX, I don't see it making it past this decade.
Most things Microsoft produces look tasteless, garish, and gaudy to me. They remind me of a fat Anna Nicole Smith with bright, Mimi makeup caked on. The default XP look reminds me of Sesame Street or Teletubbies. Apple's stuff looks much more refined and elegant in comparison. That's my subjective opinion. Some people like Ferraris. I prefer Porsche.
I can't get to the article, but I doubt Microsoft will left me down by elevating their "style" above the lowest common denominator. Besides, in a Media Player, I spend much more time looking at the media than the player.
You prefer alternative solutions probably because you attack the organizational problem from a different angle. While your solutions makes perfect sense to someone working on a file system level -- you have tidy organized music so it's easy to find & burn, and don't need to scan -- many users work on a more abstract level with playlists. If you do, suddenly the playlist sorting intelligence and logical grouping of music from possibly more than one folder (or even drives) etc, makes a lot more sense because instead of opening up a separate app to select and burn your music, you click a single button to take care of burning your sorted list already open. The same thing with syncing. No need to open folders and drag & drop stuff each time you want to do this. Sure, you can make a script for the job or whatever, but then you just do a different form of preparation to simplify your job. Another user may instead of that form of automation prefer the media player's.
Store all your media in a single location? Yes, it's a much more simple solution, and also less flexible as you aren't working on an abstract enough level to e.g. cover multiple physical and/or network drives, and so on. Sometimes you actually want this, and then you can use one of these players, and you'd once again get "your single location" point of access -- the media player's metadata-powered music library.
Beware: In C++, your friends can see your privates!
It seems since the web got popular, nobody cares about making things you can manipulate look like it (e.g. buttons that look pressable). You just cram whatever pretty stuff on the screen you want, and [maybe] put some mouseover highlight so people can simply move the mouse over every item on the screen to tell what is clickable. So simple and efficient! :/
For every expert, there is an equal and opposite expert. - Arthur C. Clarke
First of all, Aero Glass sucks. I've been working with a Stardock clone of this look and feel for a few weeks now in XP, and it wears thin pretty quickly, adding nothing at all to the OS experience. Other than a sucky look and feel, what's left? Fixes for bugs that never should have hit XP in the first place? New bugs caused by MS putting functionality in the OS that doesn't belong there (e.g., RSS feeds)? How about a search engine for people who put files in random places on their hard drive, then complain when they can't find anything (Wanted: an automated search engine that works with socks and underwear)?
As for Media Player's GUI, does anyone stare at their media player all day, admiring it, or do you fire up a playlist and then minimize it (or if playing video, maximize it to get rid of the GUI entirely).
There's nothing whatever in Vista worth waiting for. What is there I neither want nor need. Right now, I'm running a clone of the Mac OSX GUI on XP. It's easy on the eyes, and doesn't require a video card from Industrial Light and Magic to run.
Sorry, Redmond. Not interested.
"My country, right or wrong; if right, to be kept right; and if wrong, to be set right." --Senator Carl Schurz (1872)
Uhm, and VS2005 is free with the OS right? Why do you think OSX is so popular with indie developers? That's right, sherlock, the tools are free with the OS.
I do agree that Microsoft will be much more compelling with the release of Vista, but I don't think Micorosoft will be able to kill Apple as easily as all that. Quite a few features in Vista were copied from OSX (Remember the early Longhorn releases with that huge sidebar on the right? That dissapeared after Microsoft saw OSX 10.4). And while sparkle will make development of user interfaces much easier, It doesn't mean much since the people who develop web interfaces with Flash are not the people who develop applicationn interface with Sparkle. The real competitor to Flash is the Expression engine (Called Acrylic or something) that will make web graphic easier but only for those who run IE. MS is trying to counter the IE only syndrome by offering crapped out versions of the Sparkle runtime for other platforms, but I seriously doubt there will be much uptake with those. The only way it would work would be if it was fully cross platform and Microsoft is far too greedy to ever let that happen.
So no, I don't think Vista will kill OSX. It will make Apple have to fight harder to compete, but that's good.
Windows.
Compact Alphabetical list > Giant oversized icons
A couple other views of the Vista control panel:
Category view from build 5112. Another full screen shot with the menu bar on the left.
Icon view
Personally, I use the classic view in XP, setting it to show a menu in the Start Menu. I know where I want to go, and it's nice that the options haven't changed much since 95. It's nice that they don't go renaming and regrouping the different options every release.
I do like the category view in Vista better than XP. The "quick links" to oft-used functions in each category are listed under the main category name, a big improvement. The fewer sub-menus I have to open, the better.
"What do you despise? By this are you truly known." --Princess Irulan, Manual of Muad'Dib
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Yes, I do use classic in XP.
However, the new Category view is something I would actually use, as it looks like a no-BS thing. Like you said, the quick links are now there, making things easier. And, in Category view on XP, sometimes I have to guess as to where a control panel will be (sometimes, it's under two levels!), so I just drop it to Classic, where I can go by alphabetic order.
Most eagerly awaited Microsoft product besides IE7 huh? I just want Microsoft products to stop sucking.
All I ask for is an IE7 that is standards compliant with at least HTML4, CSS1, CSS2, Javascript, and can properly show alpha transparency in PNG's. I'm so sick of having to make an entirely different stylesheet just for IE to display my website's in a way that is usable.
They could amaze me by properly supporting SVG and canvas too. I can't imagine IE supporting SVG and canvas any sooner than the year 2020 at the rate they're going. If they had any brains whatsoever they'd give up the IE rendering engine and just use Gecko. To me, it seems that would be the easiest and cheapest way to keep end-users from switching to other browsers such as Firefox.
As long as IE sucks I have no reason to think Microsoft has the ability to make a decent program let alone a decent operating system and dsktop enviroment.
At what price learning? At what cost wisdom? The price is a man's peace of mind, and the cost is his life.