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Windows Vista 5342 Screenshots
Lhopar writes "Microsoft released a new build of Windows Vista to beta testers. Flexbeta has got some screenshots. Included in this build is an extensive collection of drivers and the exclusive sidebar. Glass is also a feature that we all have come to respect and love, along with the 3D flip. The official version number is 6.0 Version 5342.winmain_idx04.060321-1730. Internet Explorer 7.0 is build Version 7.0.5342.2. Nice features include a new 'Paint' and needed redesigned network center."
5342 is a lot of screenshots.
Sweet! New version of Paint!
If your theory is different from practice, then your theory is wrong.
1. Wait for Apple to do it first 2. Take 4 years to copy what Apple did in the prosses promicing everything + a new shiney toaster then take it away so your left with the old OS + some nice pictures 3. Say everything Apple did (now 6 years ago) will be in the next version and have people still eat it up 4. ????????? 5. Profit
"Slashdot, where telling the truth is overrated but lying is insightful."
5 years for a new version of paint! Well worth the wait. Screw linux, I want the new MS Paint! Linux will continue to fall behind microsoft, it doesn't even have MS Paint. Hahahaha Silly Linux users, you don't know what your missing.
In the performance rating screenshot, they give seperate ratings for CPU graphics etc then give a total overall figure.
Something doesn't make sense:
Processor: P4 3.0GHZ 4.3
Memory: 1023mb 5.2
Hard Drive: 179GB free 4.8
Graphics Radeon 9600 4.3
Graphics Mem: 126mb 3.7
Overall Rating: 3
Wouldn't it be reasonable to expect this machine to have a 4?
Or is graphics memory the only meaningful metric?
liqbase
http://www.flexbeta.net.nyud.net:8090/main/comment s.php?catid=1&shownews=18760
.nyud.net:8090 to all post links automatically?
I wonder when slashcode is going to support inserting
Computers make very fast, very accurate mistakes
What's that? They released a new Paint?
Now I have no choice but to upgrade...
I swear these articles are like the Slashdot version of Two Minutes Hate.
Ah, I think I'll wait and see the screen shots on my own monitor when I'm running Vista ...
See http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/default.asp?url= /library/en-us/winsat/winsat/winsatinfolevel1_stru ct.asp for a summary on what the various levels need.
--I thought I was wrong once, but I was mistaken.
I'm surprised so many people are even checking this out with all the Windows hate you people feature.
- Still uses crappy activation
- In the third [screen]shot down, the windows stacked at a 3-D angle looks horrible. It might amuse little kids for a while though (clippy all over again)
- The updated paint doesn't look that different, and anyone with any serious graphics needs isn't going to use it anyway
- More of those lovely flashy blue setup screens that dumb down the interface (I personally don't like them)
- The performance rating is an interesting idea; it might be useful for people buying games (especially parents)
Disclaimer: I rushed this post a bit, I'm in a hurryDon't you just hate it when people reply to your signature?
I like the screenshot with widgets:
Link.
With the timer, I can time almost anything! (Makes you wonder what is it that I can't time, and why do they need such an obvious explanation?)
The icon for both a number puzzle and picture puzzle is the same! (Requiring me to read the text, completely making the icon irrelevant. --yes, yes, beta version, whatever)
But the best thing of all, and the widget that I think SpaceX is most excited about, is the Launcher!
Name your price Microsoft, name your price!
If you don't know what AltaVista is (was), get off my lawn.
Flip 3d is just eye candy. I personally think it's a bit silly... just there for the 'wow' factor.
But the classic alt-tab also has live previews of the applications, as does hovering the mouse over the window's taskbar area. The thing that is missed in the captures is that as you tab through the apps all windows are showing their current content (i.e. - movies still play in the alt-tab/flip-3d versions of the windows). Definitely eye candy, but the live preview can be useful when you have lots of windows open.
Here's another page with screenshots, as the story link seems to be /.ed:
1 6
http://www.msblog.org/album/thumbnails.php?album=
http://almostsmart.com
The Windows Vista sidebar has already been ported to Windows XP. You can find a download link here along with installation instructions. More widgets and gadgets for the sidebar can be found here.
I tried it and it just doesn't do anything for me that can't already be done in Windows XP without taking up more screen-space.
Does anyone know if it's possible to theme Vista to look like XP? (not Windows 2k classic). I haven't seen any (recent) screenshots of Vista looking this way, so I'm wondering if they're including it.
The site seems to be slashdotted, so here's the google cache from the site ;)
It's just the still unfixed floating point bug in the Pentium rearing it's ugly head.
They get that in post.
Solitare Vista is going to be the best-looking card simulation game available on any platform! I can't wait to get my hands on Vista now!
http://www.scorpioncity.com/images/crash/m/bsod.pn g
http://www.windowsitpro.com/Files/301/Screen_01.gi f
http://www.pcstats.com/articleimages/200409/BSOD_2 .gif
Join the Slashcott! Feb 10 thru Feb 17!
For the number of you people bashing Microsoft, a hell of a lot of you are looking at those screenshots, so if you don't like Vista, please get off the damn site.
My machine loads Half-Life 2 faster than Vista. Enough said.
So when a poster makes predictions like The Coral Cache (or mirrordot, or whatever else) go down faster than the website itself and Now the mirrordot cache, which will be down moments after I click submit how hard is it really to click on three little links before you go around modding hom insightful? For posterity's sake let's just say that the direct link is down hard, coral cache loads text but barfs on images and mirrordot is chugging away merrily.
How does a 7-person democracy cut a pie? Into 4 pieces.
Everyone's been saying Vista is just stealing from Mac OS X. I never realized before seeing these screenshots just how true that is (appears to be, anyway). I'm not really a Mac user, but that interface looks a lot like a Mac...
;)
All this time, all that money, and this is the best interface they could come up with?
Well, whatever. Like a lot of people on these threads keep reminding us, we don't have to use it and of course there's no convincing me to switch from Linux to Windows
Everything I need to know about copyrights I learned from Slashdot.
From x64bit.net "We also have information that almost 60% of the code for Vista will be rewritten." Is this true?
Also what language(s) is Vista actually programmed in?
The best education consists in immunizing people against systematic attempts at education. - Paul Feyerabend
Good, but you got the name wrong. It's Emperor Bilgatine.
Also starring Richard Stallman as the wookie, no costume necessary. And Linus Torvalker (use the source, Linus!).
Funny how the window decorations in these screenshots look a lot like the new default Fedora Core 5 metacity theme, at least in terms of shape and the window operation buttons. Shame on Redhat for copying Windows like that. Oh wait.
Seems to me Windows is looking more and more like the *nix desktops all the time. I guess this means that Linux really is influencing even Microsoft.
Having played with Xgl a bit, I find it cool, but generally speaking translucent windows are not that useful and often make the contents of the windows harder to read. Looks like MS's take on this is to add blurring to the translucency which actually makes the window contents very readable while still maintaining some transparency. Whether this is going to be a good thing when you have a bunch of windows stacked on top of each other I don't know. But definitely the blurring effect plus the translucency is much better than just the translucency that I can get with Xgl. Of course nothing stops one from doing the bluring in Xgl too. Xgl has all of these capabilities right here now. It will be interesting to see how translucency is finally used. For all its eye-candy, OS X does almost no translucency, except on the dock.
I have to agree with the parent's question regarding the modding of the grandparent. I don't particularly care what operating system I use-I just want the best tool for my productivity. So when the grandparent cited what appears to be the truth about Microsoft's "innovation" technique, I read it and thought, "sounds about right." But if they do a better job than Apple has done with the same features, then I'll use Windows instead. Same goes for Linux or any other operating system that comes down the pike.
It's been the default for quite a lot of years... have you ever used IE? But unlike the older versions it's also easy to change now.
This is a sig. There are many others like it, but this one is mine.
What were MS thinking? It looks like they tried to create something with a wow factor and didn't really pull it off. Most of the effects look pointless and actually look like they would be anti-productive. For example, the window borders are semi transparent. What a rediculous idea - I mean the user wants to quickly and easily distinguish window borders and making them transparent makes this much harder to do. In one of those screenshots the inside of the window has such strong contrast and the border is transparen that my eye naturally goes for the inside of the window for where I would expect the title bar to be because of this. I don't mind eye-candy but it should be used to boost productivity and clarity and not to reduce it. Oh well...
They could at least have included screenshots of the new features spefically mentioned in the blurb. I was actually looking forward to checking out the new paint... :(
I guess I will HAVE to install the new release now!
"Widgets" have been around for YEARS. Apple didnt invent the concept of them. Vistas mail looks alot like a slightly less complicated version of outlook 2003. not apple mail.
I'd say you're definitely right on this one. Linux is nothing but a pain in the ass while XP has never BSOD on me. Linux seems to be about the least stable and functional kernel availible.
*The most erroneous stories are those we think we know best - and therefore never scrutinize or question.*
But how many people will use MSN search? I'm gradually converting anyone whose PC I can get at to Firefox, and as far as I can tell hardly anyone has figured out what the box in the upper right corner is for. It's painful to watch how they'll open a tab and type in the Google URL instead of simply using the search box, even after it's been pointed out to them.
I agree MS isn't doing a great job at synthesizing what's new in Vista. There are so many updates/redesigns/new features across the board in all aspects of the OS, that it's honestly a little hard to put it all in one place. But here's my try at some of the basics:
l uate/overvw.mspx
l uate/feat/secfeat.mspx
o rk/evaluate/new_network.mspx
At a high level, here are some of the new features (not an exhaustive list):
http://www.microsoft.com/technet/windowsvista/eva
Deeper into the new security features:
http://www.microsoft.com/technet/windowsvista/eva
Deeper into the new networking features (in a nutshell, there's a lot more since this was written):
http://www.microsoft.com/technet/itsolutions/netw
There are obviously tons of kernel improvements, a new driver infrastructure, the new presentation framework, and system-wide search built-in.
On the client side, new versions of Media Center (great new UI, handles cable cards), new Media Player, a DVD maker, a calendaring app, a sidebar for creating gadets (yes, a la OSX), improved photo handling. Setup has also been improved, both in time (staged builds take >45 minutes to complete), and simplicity (only a few targeted questions at the start and end, no need to stick around during the actual install).
There's more, but that's a gist of some of the new features.
that none of the windows have anything in their "title bar"?
Was MS too afraid of obscuring their beautiful see-thru bar to allow text on it?
I might be overreacting here, but I kind of like being able to see the name of the window I have open without having to look down to the taskbar.
as far as I can tell hardly anyone has figured out what the box in the upper right corner is for. It's painful to watch how they'll open a tab and type in the Google URL instead of simply using the search box, even after it's been pointed out to them.
Old habits die hard.
I hardly ever use the search box in Firefox, and just search from the location bar. (In my defense, I set it up so I can type "g " to return the results of a Google search, so that's what I use. It's possible without that I'd use the search box.)
Apart from the prevalent "constructive" criticism inherent to the Slashdot community, I happen to have one positive comment for a change. I personally appreciated the layout of the IE7 and its minimalistic top toolbar design. Just by looking at it, it felt like the browser was in fullscreen mode, and the fact that they used space on the right from the tabs is also commendable in terms of space utilization/layout optimization. Granted, until I actually get to mess with it, it is impossible to suggest that the layout is more intutive, but at least in terms of the visual layout, I think that they are on the right track.
If a tree falls in the forest and nobody hears it, does it make a sound?
If a titlebar has no text in it, is it really a titlebar?
Transparency and window animations. Whoop-dee-do. As a non-Windows-programming end user what I want to know is what new features are in Vista that are going to help me accomplish real work? What's in Vista that should be worth my time and money to upgrade? How will those be better than what I already have in WinXP and Win2000? If you are a beta tester, please let me know. And I don't use IE or MS Paint.
Slashdot: Failed Car Analogies. Amateur Lawyering. Anecdote Battles.
Whether or not everyone else is joking, I'm actually eager to see what the new Paint is like. Too bad the damn page won't load. :(
Who Cares? I've seen this a lot lately, but I can't see the point. Whenever Product $Bar comes along, people moan about how Product $Foo had this feature first, as if it's going to make any difference to how it operates. I'm not going to use the product that's out first, I'm going to use the product that's best at doing it.
Whenever I use a Mac, I can't get over the way you have to resize windows from the corner only. Windows lets me drag, Mac makes me move then jiggle about a bit then drag. Until the Dock came along, I often got lost in the mountains of windows I had open - Windows organised them all into the taskbar. Back in the day, the Mac zealots boasted how Apple had the whole window managing idea first. This didn't change the fact that I didn't like Apple's window management at all, though. (Luckily it got better with OS X).
Another example: Popup blocking. Opera was the first browser to stop new windows from being opened while browsing. Then Mozilla came along, took Opera's feature, and improved it by only blocking windows while the page loads. To this day, Opera weenies still proudly proclaim "Don't forget, Opera had popup blocking first!". Screw you guys, Opera's implementation sucked. I went with Mozilla's implementation because it didn't block new windows opened by me.
That being said, Microsoft have a long track record for making bad products - IE still uses Opera's old braindead popup blocking method. Heck, DRM had me sold before I heard any other features.
Microsoft isn't an innovator? Oh. There are plenty of reasons to dislike Vista, but I don't care about originality being one of them.
Guy asked me for a quarter for a cup of coffee. So I bit him.
I know this is off topic but why is everybody inserting signatures into slashdot now? I've noticed it more and more. In this post alone a bunch of modded up comments have signatures in them. Can we please try to keep this stuff out of the discussion and into the profiles where it belongs? -- you can just put the stuff here in your profile so I don't have to read it.
[goes off, reads specs]
[blink]
Are they designing an OS, or a video game??!
~REZ~ #43301. Who'd fake being me anyway?
Does anyone find the Vista UI at all attractive? Its pretty horrible from a color theory point of view. It just looks like a ugly graphics mixed together. It looks rather slopply for a ui.
I know people will add all kinds of things to this statement, but the "vista" part of Vista, looks like a sloppy hack job.
I'm a computer artist... I had to say it. It's ugly.
Icons are very telling of Microsoft's attention to detail. Notice how folders stand on their sides (hint, MS designers, papers will fall out if you do that) and every single display in pictures has horrible glare on the screen. Apple would never do something like that, Steve Jobs would not approve.
To clarify, "sucked" is in the past tense; Opera doesn't do that now.
The 3D flip eye-candy might be helpful for switching through 5 apps, but what windows user only has 5 apps running at one time?
Why has there been no motivation from the windows world to implement some sort of workspace switching that is present in nearly every linux desktop?
Yes, MS released a PowerToy add-on for XP that attempted to do proved multiple desktops, but it was slow and quirky - it was an afterthought, not designed into the OS (or window manager...)
Now that alternative shells for XP are fairly stable, I use bbLean at work, and I am about 90% satisfied with its implementation of workspaces. How long will it take for alternative shells to come out for Vista to fix all of the dumb eye-candy and make it useable?
I played around with "3ddesk" for an evening or two. http://desk3d.sourceforge.net/screenshots.php (It's very smooth in real life, unlike the animation)
Anyway, it was neat and all, but I never use it. It's quicker to just use the menubar switcher. It's a good way to impress your friends though. I imagine MS's deal is similar -- looks neato but doesn't really help you out.
What changed under Obama? Nothing Good
Well after searching for all of two minutes because it bothered me so much I found the Disable Sigs Strip sig quotes from comments option. Finally! I can read in happiness again. I wish slashdot turned this on by default but it was easy enough to find.
In order to see the Aero Glass, users need a 3.4GHz PC, 1GB RAM and a 256MB DX10 Card??????? It's either going to push hardware sales enormously or be a huge flop.
Hey, so, what's the going rate these days for shills? MS obviously don't have high standards for their paid stooges, and I could do with a little extra spare cash.
Do they have screenies of Solitaire and Minesweeper?
Solitaire has been ditched in favor of Lumines, and both games have been rewritten using VBA.
Ya know, you'd think they'd realise that if we WANTED the Mac user-interface and behaviour model, we'd BUY a bloody Mac in the first place. Making Windows more Mac-like may gratify the Mac fanboys, but a great many people use Windows specifically because it does NOT look or behave like a Mac.
~REZ~ #43301. Who'd fake being me anyway?
Are they designing an OS, or a video game??!
Rejected name for Codename Longhorn: "Windows XB".
For an organisation (and convicted monopolist) that spends - or is supposed to spend - 7 Billion Dollars per year on "innovation" I think we're pretty much entitled to ask them to do better than the rest, to actually lead, put their money where their mouths are for a change. Microsoft, according to their own spin, are supposed to be Market Leaders in more than just market share. Clearly, they're punching below their weight in this respect: innovation, pah! They're just the dinosaurs they really are, taking no risks, even with that secure monopoly and user-base. In this light, contempt is all they deserve.
Patriotism is a virtue of the vicious
Erm... is your comment related to the topic at all? Oh wait, this is Slashdot, so it doesn't has to be.
Anyway, most of the criticism around Vista boils down to one point: it is indeed (and looks) like a cool os, and his interface is as good as OS X one (except for the ring on the active textbox, which I hope they will add soon, since it really really helps the user). But, is it worth 300$? Why I should upgrade from my Windows XP to Windows Vista? That's the real point.
Hope you have a good answer
nbody2002:If you can read this you may be addicted to the internet
Umf... those specs seem rather weird
I get a 1 on my desktop. Why? Since it lacks SSE2 support... And with the GeForce 4 card lacking Pixel shader v2 stopping it from getting a 3.
Apparently, 1GB RAM and an Athlon 2800+ is getting you a 1. I know, this system is 3 years old but damn if I cannot play at least some of the latest 3D games (which MS states I cannot). And last time I checked I had no problems with H.264 playback.
Yet, they've placed a K7 2800+ in 3, which obviously lacks SSE2 and that gives it a mere 1.
Gah, I don't understand Microsoft.
Enhanced alt+tab with window preview is available for free (and win XP) on the Microsoft powertoys homepage. Definitely a great feature, and another reason that will prevent me from upgrading to Vista :D.
nbody2002:If you can read this you may be addicted to the internet
Pretty pictures, transparency, 3D effects. Oooooooh. But how useful, and more importanly, how easy will it be for someone, or someones grandparents, to actually use. The first thing I noticed was the lack of a 'START' button. It seems to have been replaced by a picture. Now I've been in tech support for over 10 years, and it's already dificult enough to get someone to follow simple directions over the telephone. I can just immagine the phone calls now:
Tech: "O.k., please open the start menu and go to the control pannel"
User: "Menu, uhm o.k. What menu? I don't see that."
Tech: "The sart menu. Just click on the button that says 'start' in the bottom-left corner of your screen".
User: "uhm, I don't see that. Hmmm. Start. Start. Nope, I don't see that anywhere"
Tech: "O.K. Please tell me what you do see on your screen."
User: "There are some pretty pictures. I really like the fish, but I want a shark in there."
Tech: "O.K. Is this Windows Vista, Windows XP, Windows 2000 or something else?"
User: "My grandson gave it to me. I don't know what it is. I think he said it was Microsoft."
Tech: "O.K. So there is no 'start' word on the left side of the task bar at the bottom of your screen. What is at the bottom-left cornet of your screen?"
User: "There's a nice little circle with some colors in it"
Tech: "O.K. You are using Windows Vista. That circle is your 'start' menu. Please click on it to open it."
-- BEEP --
Your 5 minutes of free product support are now finished. Please enter your credit card number to continue speaking to a technical support representative. This call will be charged at $2.95 per minute. Please enter your credit card number now.
Just the thing to increase productivity. Re-education needed yet again.
- James
In the beginning the universe was created. This made a lot of people very angry and is widely considered as a bad move.
"That being said, Microsoft have a long track record for making bad products - IE still uses Opera's old braindead popup blocking method. Heck, DRM had me sold before I heard any other features."
This is false, both Internet Explorer (6.0SP2+ of course) and Opera only block popups that are spawned when the page is loading. Opera does have an option, block *ALL* popups, but it is turned to block *UNREQUESTED* popups by default. I've found that Opera's popup blocking is better out of the box, but with a combination of adblock plus and Firefox's popup blocking (or more recently, Opera 9 with content blocker blocking flash ads) that you'll never see any popups.
Linus Torvalker (use the source, Linus!)
ROFL.
this sig is useless
Opera used to only support blocking all popups (or forcing them to the background). The far more powerful event aware blocking didn't appear until version 6 iirc.
Glass is also a feature that we all have come to respect and love
Uhhhh... *backs away slowly*
Beware: In C++, your friends can see your privates!
So I don't feel bad about saying: Oh my god, what's up with this interface?
Immediately Noticable Bad things:
1) Close icon 2x the size of minimise and maximise, yet should be used far less. Accidentally hitting close is far more likely than accidentally hitting maximise or minimise. I hope that all applications have warning dialogs. Also these buttons seem to be perched in the top part of the titlebar. So they're thin, vertically, and I imagine most mouse movement to reach them will incorporate vertical movement, so they'll be hard to hit quickly. This may reduce the effect of the larger close button.
2) Large window borders around application content. Again, this looks ugly, serves no purpose.
3) Translucent titlebar with blurring effect. This looks nice until you have to use it. The titles have a white halo around them to make them more readable - but how about just having non-translucent titlebars?
4) The colour scheme and overall effect is very 'gamey'. It's less 'duplo' than XP though, apart from the frosted glass duplo window borders. Will people really want to use a glassy black desktop?
I worry that all the glitz will actually disturb the user when they're using the computer, rather than working as a visual aid to enhance their usage. Microsoft have a long history of putting worthless graphical effects into their desktop - expanding pop-up menus for example - and I don't see them stopping this trend. It will be configurable I'm sure - I hope that Glass has enough configurability to set the translucency of the window borders to 'none' and to shrink the window border (in particular the left and right borders).
There are nice things however. The 'Start' button looks very nice. The desktop widgets look nicely integrated.
To this day, Opera weenies still proudly proclaim "Don't forget, Opera had popup blocking first!". Screw you guys, Opera's implementation sucked. I went with Mozilla's implementation because it didn't block new windows opened by me.
Screw you! My Opera doesn't block new windows I open.
Who Cares?
And here my point comes: I wish people could apply this to bickering about things like these as well. If Opera users say it was first with this browser and they'd happen to be right, what's the problem? If you like Firefox's implementation better, by all means go for it! Do you really need to say "screw you" to other users just because you prefer another implementation better? It also just leads to unecessary discussions like this one because Opera's implementation doesn't seem to be at all like that today.
Beware: In C++, your friends can see your privates!
Here's an older video looking at a build of the shell UI:http://channel9.msdn.com/Showpost.aspx?postid=1 14694
If you don't know where you are going, you will wind up somewhere else.
Windows Vista is supposed to have a "Classic" mode, which basically means that you can make it looks like Windows 2000. On lower end PCs that can't do all the fancy eye candy, they'll have no choice either. Though if I ever upgrade to Vista, the chances are pretty good that's what I'll run regardless of the power of my PC.
Just look at that about box. A blue -> green gradient right on top of a blue -> orange gradient?! Ow my poor eyes.
The curved corners on the tops of windows need transparency. All the menus (on my system running 10.4) are slightly transparent (look close) and fade out. All windows have a drop shadow, with a more prominent shadow on the focused one.
I agree with you - the subtle effects are the best.
So stop moaning and go run Looking Glass. Oh right, you can't. It's a proof-of-concept, not a desktop OS.
Did you blast Apple when they passed off widgets as their own, despite having been beat to the arena by third party developers years ago? And anyway, where in this story is MS claiming that Flip is an innovation? They are saying that flip and the new tasbar and alt-tab options are new to windows and handy features to have. Both are true. Is Microsoft not ALLOWED to improve their OS just because others have done it before?
If Microsoft succeeds in becoming more secure, you'll probably blast them for copying Apple, or Linux, or Fort Knox or something.
of an operating system. Sure, thats useful. Thanks?
---- Booth was a patriot ----
Or, they saw something that was a neat idea, but no one was actually using, and decided to give it to the masses.
I have yet to see anyone from MS claim this was all their doing. Do you have a serious proposal as to how they could give credit to Sun?
-bZj
.sig
Who the hell wants to see 5342 screenshots? Why so many? Why not just give us 50 good ones? Do they really think that I have the time to look through more than 100 considering all the millions of other sites that compete for my attention each day?
In the screenshots even the titlebar of the focused window is transparent. The only difference seems to be that the minimize, maximize, close buttons in the top right hand corner are coloured while the unfocused windows' minimize, maximize, close buttons are greyed out. This looks confusing to me because it looks like the focused window is unfocused.
I can actually run looking glass as its available for free from the links I gave. I am actually running it. It serves no purpose, but its a start. Look, I am not a Windows fan. MS has done more to stunt the growth of good, freely available software than any other company at any time. In the process, they have killed off innovation. Now people just have to live with the fact that Windows is what their "computer" is. I won't make any pretensions of even looking at the issue fairly. I am biased against MS and that's that. MS made the claim when they demo these things as screenshots or whatever. Even you said, "They are saying that flip and the new tasbar and alt-tab options are new to windows". That's my whole point, its not NEW. MS is allowed to make improvements, its MS'es right to do so. But selling the same thing that's available for free as part of a bloated OS, for which users will have to pony up, not only for the SW, but also for the hardware, come on now. There's a reason Sun is not releasing project looking glass as part of anything. Its because, it serves no real purpose except for looking cool. 3D interfaces have a long way to go before they actually become useful. I see these features just like the "clown-paint" MS put on XP. When it came out, it looked good for a few days, now it just hurts the eyes. Actually, none of the features are handy to me as when I am running a video on my system, I don't know about you, but I watch the video. If I need to do something else, I pause it and come back. Its eye candy for eye candy's sake. No real value to the consumer at all. I could not accuse MS of improving their security model by copying anyone. They have their own proprietry, NT 4 model, which is basically a pile of junk. I can't believe that they took 6 years to deliver an OS, and it still stands on the old NT kernel.
"Glass is also a feature that we all have come to respect and love"
Says who?
Shame on me for not wanting an OS that requires a bleeding edge computer to run.
I remember the good old days when an OS was supposed to run the killer aps, and not be one.
/sig
Yah, I do the same thing. XP luckily has an option under 'Performance' where you can just click 'tune for max performance' and bamf! all that stuff goes away.
I've played around with things like translucent xterms and whatall. Sure, it looks really frickin' cool. But at the end of the day, I need to focus on the foreground. So it is back to white text on a black background. And maybe a few bright colors for syntax highlighting. Its the only way I can get my work done.
Contrast, contrast, contrast.
Unfortunately, things don't work how you think they do.
No one cares who implemented feature X first, or who thought it up. That makes no difference to the end product. The important part is that the end product does have feature X.
If Microsoft have now caught up to something Apple did years ago, then you can no longer hold that against them. You need to find features that Microsoft hasn't implemented yet, and pick on those. No one really cares about "well, Apple had mice before Windows did" points because they are now irrelevant.
What did I say? New to windows, that's what I said. Yes, Looking glass has done them as a proof of concept. That is not a consumer operating environment, nor is it on Windows. Vista is the first to implement these specific features in a Windows desktop environment.
You said it yourself, there isn't any logic to your anti-MS vendetta here. Microsoft could change everything about their company exponentially toward the positive, and you'd still be out for blood, becuase by golly they aren't innovating!
I'm no MS fan. I use some of their software by necessity and because, for my day to day tasks, it's endlessly more convenient and capable than linux or macintosh solutions. But to launch into anti-MS tirades every time they set about trying to make incremental improvements to the desktop environment? That's just stupid.
Lynx never allowed a popup!
-- I have a private email server in my basement.
Amazing how much it looks like Enlightenment. Has anyone checked for Rasterman's comments in the code ;-)
Mommy. What's a karma whore?
'Vista' means 'Shit' in a language called 'Gujarati' spoken by 41 million people in state of Gujarat, India.
I can imagine dialogue with my Mom..
Me: Mom this is new Windows Vista
Mom: ehh ? Windows Shit ??
They said equivalent, which basically means a 2.4GHz Athlon 64 or Pentium M/"Core"/Conroe/Whatever.
Remember, P4 gigahertz mean nothing in the world of real processors.
I used to get high on life, but I developed a tolerance. Now I need something stronger.
The Firefox search bar doesn't use my search history from Google.com. That makes it less useful to me. As far as I know, there is no key press to set the cursor focus to the search bar. That is another part that makes it less useful to me.
That's a very good idea. Sometime in 2007 the DoS will be over and the screenshots might be there. The only thing that's sure is it will still be a bad idea to attach a M$ run computer to the internet.
In the mean time, why don't you try out one of the nicer, free Window managers. Enlightenment, Gnome and KDE have all the eye candy you want without the M$ performance hit. You can run them on your current computer or the one you give yourself for Christmas.
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
I think you mean "the only operating environment" that's available to the public at large when you say "consumer operating environment". How can I really put this is a way that would make you understand? Let me try again. Looking glass is not only a proof of concept, its a working, downloadable program which runs on Windows. It did this before Vista did, and that's just what I pointed out. Nothing more. And you just turned to personal attacks instead of making a legible point.
I am not crazy that I would be spouting against MS if it played fair. Why should I? I don't have any stocks in Apple or anything.
MS can make all the incremental changes they want as long as they don't tie users into an endless upgrade cycle. Did you check the screenshots that Vista would require 800 MB RAM just for the OS. To me that's crazy. And for what, shiny buttons?
You don't need to point put that you are not an MS fan to help make your point. I don't care. It does not concern me or what I pointed out in any way.
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
For an organisation (and convicted monopolist) that spends - or is supposed to spend - 7 Billion Dollars per year on "innovation" I think we're pretty much entitled to ask them to do better than the rest, to actually lead, put their money where their mouths are for a change.
The only thing you're entitled to is the software that is on the CD that you purchased. And you don't speak for "we" - no matter how much of a slashborg you think you are.
Just by looking at the screenshots, I felt really disoriented. I couldn't tell where each window ended and another one started. Inside the windows, it is not easy to find which options are clickable and which are not. Maybe it is not like that in reality, who knows?
I hope the new Paint is useful for some serious work. The old one was only usable for screen grabs.
For level 3 computers:
"These computers should readily support a composted desktop..."
So the desktop should be put out with the potato peelings?
Why I should upgrade from my Windows XP to Windows Vista?
according to Microsoft, Halo 2
being vague is almost as cool as doing that other thing...
Microsoft has NEVER turned out a product that could kill competition. Your so called "revolutionary" '95 came after OS/2, and OS/2 did everything '95 could do, plus some, and did it all better. It's not the product, and it's not competition on merit, it's all market manipulation by sometimes quite questionable means.
We have enough youth, how about a fountain of SMART?
Hey, look guys, it's a sheeple. ^^^^^
Glad you're happy with what they wanna stick up your backside, but I know there are lots of people not so happy with their definition of innovation.
We have enough youth, how about a fountain of SMART?
Don't quite get the fuss over Windows Vista. I'm strangely under the misaprehension that the killer package on my PC should be the app's I use day in day out and not the OS. The OS's role in life is to provide resource manangement and hardware abstraction for applications running on the box. A GUI, while a nice to have, should not be an essential requirement of an OS and should ideally be a minimal setup which enables the user to easily carry out tasks in a graphical environment without getting in the way. Hence my lack of love for XP, KDE, GNOME when used with all the trimmings.
Everytime the OS forces a hardware upgrade on people we're moving away from app's driving user computational requirements to being driven by the thing which is just supposed to manage all the bits of a PC - not mint money for the hardware manufactures.
--- Users are like bacteria -> Each one causing a thousand tiny crises until the host finally gives up and dies.
and should not be allowed on Slashdot if the website wants to remain "impartial"
Do you really expect a site that uses derogatory icons for Microsoft and Windows topics (the only topics with derogatory icons on this site) to have aspirations of impartiality? You must be new here.
-- "I never gave these stories much credence." - HAL 9000
Looks to me like it is. Especially the maintenance screens.
Running with Linux for over 20 years!
I like transparency. I have my linux panel set for transparent and set a small degree of transparency in my menu and terminal background. I think the glass effect looks nice and doesn't deter usability.
But it seems like people associate this with the hardware demands of Vista. Are these effects really so hard to create? Capturing an underlying window instead of just a piece of background is cool and I imagine takes some resources. But it isn't like a _real_ game engine, is it? Even if you want some lighting effects, I assume the point source is fixed. And all the 3D panels in the screenshot are at the same angle. The effects are nice. Are they really annoyingly resource intensive?
WinFS is still being developed. Beta code was released in Aug 2005 and Dec 2005.7 624.aspx9 042.aspx
http://blogs.msdn.com/winfs/archive/2005/08/29/45
http://blogs.msdn.com/winfs/archive/2005/12/01/49
The final version will be added in a service pack in the future.
-- "I never gave these stories much credence." - HAL 9000
The search bar keeps its own history, so if it was all you used you would be ok. The keyboard shortcut to focus it is ctl-k, conveniently right next to ctl-l.
> Are they designing an OS, or a video game??!
;)
Have you looked at the screen shots?
Clearly the answer is both
--I thought I was wrong once, but I was mistaken.
...They only managed to poorly rip the looks of OSX. Maybe they should take a hint, try to rip the security features next time instead.
Warning: Corny karma killing post above.
I thought windows already was a game O_o
Warning: Corny karma killing post above.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Look, special small programs that run in the background (widgets) and a way to view all the contents of open windows (expose) and a search bar (spotlight). Windows Vista is really one rockin', all-new OS.
Interested in a Flash-based MAME front end? Visit mame.danzbb.com
Don't like it? Don't buy it.
---- Den ene knappen er powerknapp, den andre er Bender voice knapp "Bite My Shiny Metal Ass"
Oh great, more useless, irritating "features" to have disable to after the installation to make it usable. Microsoft have officially lost the plot with this one.
MS wrote 95. And I wonder how Lotus123 is doing...
"They said we couldn't do it [Athlon]... but we built it, we shipped it... and we didn't have to recall it." Rich Heye
Isn't anyone else creeped out by the "Welcome to your computer Dave" message? What's next, "I'm sorry Dave. That DVD is copyright protected, Dave. Regardless if you are the owner, you may not circumvent the copy protection mechanism, Dave. I'm sorry Dave, I must now suck you of the airlock Dave." *shudder*
Because teenage pranks are fun when you're about to die!
Oh, I see... it's either a multitasking OS, or a localhost-MMORPG :)
~REZ~ #43301. Who'd fake being me anyway?
The Vista interface reminds me of early Mac OS X. Circa 2001.
Back then, Apple made windows' title bars semi-transparent when they where in the background (that is, every window but the active one). Drop down menus where also semi-transparent.
Flash-forward to 2006, Mac OS X 10.4 - "Tiger". No semi-transparent window title bars, menus are almost completely opaque.
What happened? Did hardware mysteriously became slower during the course of the last five years? No, of course not. Flashy transparency effects were there in the first versions because they where new - they were there to show what the window compositor was capable off. Once the novelty wears off, usability is once again the prime factor in every user's mind.
I've played with Xgl on Linux, and just as OS X did in its beginnings and Vista will do on its first iteration (uhm... next year?!), it has many little "show off" FX, like the window "wobbling & inertia" when dragging and the "vibrating" fx for window & menu openings, among others. Luckily they can be customized/toned down.
I expect Vista's "transparency & background blur" on the border of each window to be the first thing most users will disable. I also assume there will be other more real-world-use themes included, least of it one without thick useless, borders.
All that being said, a composited desktop which makes good use of transparency, shadows et al does improve day to day usage. Not to mention that it frees up the CPU and makes everything more responsive. I use OS X daily and find it a pleasure to use. I know people who (for the time being) switched to Genome from their beloved KDE because of Xgl.
Ignorance, stupidity, lazieness and artificiality. They've appeased the masses needs haven't they? Typical Windows Users: It's so easy to use, I don't need to learn a thing AND it looks good! I'm dumb enough to buy it! I can't wait for my system to be hacked by the latest security exploits! This is awesome!!!
"Reality is merely an illusion, albeit a very persistent one." - Albert Einstein (1879-1955)
Agree with most except the opera weenie bit. I've been using Opera on and off of around 5 years, and it has never blocked a window that I opened myself. Even now when I use Firefox, if you visit some sites, like cqcounter, pop-ups that shouldn't appear do. Don't get me wrong, Mozilla is a very good browser, but wrt opera your problem has never affected me, ever.
Vista : Dave, welcome to your computer ... *click*
Dave clicks somewhere
Vista : I'm sorry Dave, I'm afraid I can't do that.
will it run on an intel mac mini???
From the looks of it, might as well buy a Mac.
"Each man has his price Bob, and yours was pretty low...", Roger Waters, Amused To Death.
And i thought this would become the /.-article with only 'funny'-mods, but you blew it!
Trust me, I work for the government.
A computer isn't a thing which has 1 function like a vacuumcleaner, it has many many features and functions. This means that you don't have 1 button in front of you which does what you want to do with the product, hence the requirement for reading some documentation.
However, most people who don't understand computers (as they say) simply don't WANT TO read any documenation or are too stubborn to actually understand what's going on. Well, I then say: suffer! If it's too much for you, user, to read some simple instructions, then it's too much for me to help your lazy a$$ out.
Never underestimate the relief of true separation of Religion and State.
I don't really care either, but stop and think for a moment about how amazing it is that one of the most profitable businesses in history has no, and I'm talking no, track record of innovation. First lets get the moneymakers out of the way:
- DOS. Helloooo Q-DOS.
- Windows. Continually evolving ripoff of MacOS and, formerly, OS/2.
- Office. WordStar did Word first, Lotus did Outlook and Excel first, all the rest is fluff and was mostly acquired anyways.
- XBox. Duh.
Almost to a one, all of its perennial "initiatives" or supposed killer apps have beene flops. Microsof Bob? The talking paper clip? The Smart Personal Objects Technology Initiative, remember that one? (No.) And if you want to get into the things that were merely blatant ripoffs that didn't succeed (the difference between MS and Google), we could talk all night. MS Live? Microsoft Reader, with its cutting edge ClearType technology pioneered by the Woz himself 30 years ago? I guessThere are entire web sites that do nothing but try to sniff out one single innovation Microsoft has made to the world of software design in its 30 years of existence. They are instructive.
I think there is a world market for maybe five personal web logs.
Nothing truly innovative ever happened on the IBM PC platform. No PC app was ever released to my knowledge that didn't have a functional predecessor on another platform.
Nobody is innovating, at least not by the metric you're using, of new paradigms. However, the metric I prefer is that of delivering more capability to the end user by combining that which existed before in more clever ways. By this metric there is still a lot of innovation happening, and by this metric Vista may still be innovative.
First screenshot, "Dave, welcome to the computer". Dr. Dave Bowman is greeted quite similiarly in this movie by the mission's HAL 9000 computer. Which subsequently goes to kill off the crew members. Oh joy, happy future ahead.
Won't this be used as a game compatibility score? Rather than the game specs having to say 'At least a xx core graphics card with xxxMb Ram, a YYMhz processor' etc. etc. The box will just be able to say "You're machine must have a Windows Super Dooper score of 5 or above to play".
That's what I thought it would be used for... and I think that's a great idea... as long as it's handled correctly, which would be very hard... like maybe you actually can play game Y perfectly well, but because the score unfairly rates some component of your machine against your score too much it might suggest you can't.
If it works, it'll be a big boon for simplicity for PC games.
An AC reminds us that M$ says, "These computers should readily support a composted desktop and at a minimum the Aero Express theme."
Whoa, I'm not sure I want my computer going into the compost heap!!
~REZ~ #43301. Who'd fake being me anyway?
Still got the wrong side of the window, Bill! Put the controls on the left side, same side where the File menu for the app is placed. No one likes dragging the mouse all over the screen. No one likes fat borders. No one likes cute tricks for the cuteness of it.
Edith Keeler Must Die