Tom's Hardware Looks at Microsoft Vista Beta

RockClimbingFool writes "Tom's Hardware has a pretty good overview of what the current beta version of Microsoft Windows Vista has to offer. The article is written from an average user's perspective, specifically highlighting exactly which differences the average computer user can expect to see from Windows XP to Windows Vista. It covers everything from IE7, to the new Windows Aero interface, to brand new games." But if you'd like your eye candy open source and downloadable now, check out Lunapark6's review of the current version of Ubuntu Dapper, with "emphasis placed on helping someone set up the system for everyday desktop usage."

Comments

1 page version

[Anonymous Coward]

http://www.tomshardware.com/2006/05/31/windows_vis ta/print.html

XP released in 2002?

[RustNeverSleeps]

Quote from the article:

Today's still-current Windows XP was initially released in 2002, which means that operating system is now pushing five years old.

IIRC, Windows XP was released in the fall of 2001. The Wikipedia article on Windows XP confirms this. It was released on October 25, 2001. XP is close to 5 years old, even closer than the article says.

Re:Can we leave the politics out of it?

[RockClimbingFool]

Yeah, my submission was only the italizied part. That other garbage is just submission crapping.

Not Necessary but Useful

[this great guy]

Necessary I don't know, but it is useful because so many people out there are totally unaware of the great features offered by alternative OSes. Regarding Ubuntu, in no particular order: Aero-like features already available via Xgl (while Vista is not yet released), centralized package management system, 1-click full system update and security patches installation (under Windows, MS-only software is upgraded), generally easier to use than Windows (according to one of my family member who is an average desktop computer user), easy to install, no drivers to download from the hardware vendors (the kernel recognize everything by default), etc.

Re:Not Necessary but Useful

[Chosen Reject]

I've never installed Linux for desktop use that I didn't have to spend quite a bit of time making all the hardware work right.

Funny, I re-installed XP only 6 months ago and had to spend hours just getting the OS up and running with updates and drivers and such. Then another several hours putting on applications such as Visual Studio, OpenOffice, Firefox, etc, and I'm not including games. Just over the weekend I installed Fedora Core 5 and after an install that took less time than Windows I spent about 1 hour running the updates and had myself a usable workstation, with Anjuta, OpenOffice, Firefox (with plugins), etc. And no, this isn't new hardware. All my hardware was purchased before Windows XP was released, so the age of the OSs shouldn't be a problem when it comes to drivers.

But maybe you were counting customizing the look and feel. Because most distros don't come with Nerzhul as the destop wallpaper I had to do that, whereas for windows it's just the blank blue for me. So yeah, you have to spend a little time customizing Linux, but at least you can do it, whereas for Windows you get what they decide looks nice to the eyes.

In case anyone is wondering, Nerzhul goes on Linux because I can make everything blend in better with a dark wallpaper, whereas the simple blue on Windows blends in better with the blue-ish theme in XP.

Re:If this is the best... keep trying.

[mad.frog]

So your mom would have an easier time installing windows?

Well, yes, most likely.

Re:So...

[Anonymous Coward]

If I'm not up to "read" 40 pages of screenshots, what, besides gfx of the UI (which has been already backported to XP as "skins") has changed in Windows?

A rather extensive list can be found at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Features_new_to_Windo ws_Vista. Some notable features include:
-New network stack
-New audio stack
-New driver framework
-New printing architecture
-New windowing system (DWM)

There are a substantial number of 'behind the scenes' changes in Vista. But for some reason the Slashdot crowd seems to think that the UI is the only thing that's changed. Oh well.

Re:Can we leave the politics out of it?

[grammar fascist]

It's Slashdot... Slashdot is where the Linux geeks hang out. If you don't like it, maybe you should read the MSDN forums or something?

Kind of. More like Linux pretender wanna-be geeks. Or Linux geeks who have to use Windows at work.

My blog has gotten most of its hits from my Slashdot sig. Click here to check out the most popular software:

http://extremetracking.com/open;sum?login=wrperson

For the record, in case things change:

Browser: Firefox 1.5 - 45.33%
Operating System: Windows XP - 60.97%

Most of us here have huge interest in how Vista turns out, if only because our employers will put it on our machines.