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."

Comments

Wow

[Anonymous Coward]

5342 is a lot of screenshots.

Microsoft the inovator

[falcon5768]

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

Worth the wait.

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

Performance rating

[LiquidCoooled]

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?

Re:Performance rating

[Xeth]

Or is graphics memory the only meaningful metric?

Isn't that the only metric by which Vista is an upgrade, anyway?

coral cahced

[^Z]

http://www.flexbeta.net.nyud.net:8090/main/comment s.php?catid=1&shownews=18760

I wonder when slashcode is going to support inserting .nyud.net:8090 to all post links automatically?

Re:coral cahced

[evilviper]

I wonder when slashcode is going to support inserting to all post links automatically?

Never. The Coral Cache (or mirrordot, or whatever else) go down faster than the website itself. The coral-cache has been /.ed now, since you posted a link to it (only in comments, not even the main story).

Now the mirrordot cache, which will be down moments after I click submit:

http://mirrordot.org/stories/451603e72396736d31653 14be64e9a25/index.html

Two Minutes Hate

[MrNonchalant]

I swear these articles are like the Slashdot version of Two Minutes Hate.

Re:Performance rating - level info

[Marbleless]

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.

First thoughts

[DarthChris]

• 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 hurry

Re:First thoughts

[amliebsch]

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)

What in the world does clippy have to do with this? Suspend judgement on this one until you see it in action. (There are demos at Channel9 if you are really interested.) It's a mode that's activated by a certain hotkey. While you hold the key down, you can use your mouse wheel or keys to flip through the stack of windows. Then when you let go of the hotkey, the one on top of the stack comes to the front. It actually looks pretty handy, like a 3D Alt+Tab.

Windows Vista sidebar for Windows XP

[ranathari]

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.

Re:Remote Exploits? Poor user security model?

[jesterpilot]

Finally, windows is ready for the desktop.

mirror

[blwrd]

The site seems to be slashdotted, so here's the google cache from the site ;)

Gaming Fans Unite!

[maniac/dev/null]

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!

I never realized

[presidentbeef]

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 ;)

Looks more like a Linux desktop all the time

[caseih]

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.

Re:Looks more like a Linux desktop all the time

[hackstraw]

For all its eye-candy, OS X does almost no translucency, except on the dock.

Translucency is built into OS X and hardware accelerated. Expose, the dock, SVG icons, terminal window, etc. use them. There are themes that you can get 3rd part to add more translucency if you want.

The day that Apple decides to by default make window titles and borders semi-translucent with a nice blurring feature and hides the title of background windows and all that jazz, I'll go back to a Linux desktop.

The screenshots (mostly slashdotted) here, http://www.msblog.org/album/displayimage.php?album =16&pos=0, are not very flattering, and there are only a couple of windows open at a time.

Re:Microsoft the in[n]ovator

[tehshen]

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.

Re:Performance rating - level info

[Reziac]

[goes off, reads specs]

[blink]

Are they designing an OS, or a video game??!

Usefulness?

[j741]

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.

It is very hard to design a good user interface

[hattig]

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.