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20 Things You Won't Like About Vista
feminazi writes "Computerworld's Scot Finnie details 20 things you won't like in Windows Vista, with a visual tour to prove it. He says that MS has favored security over end-user productivity, making the user feel like a rat caught in a maze with all the protect-you-from-yourself password-entry and 'Continue' boxes required by the User Account Controls feature." From the article: "In its supreme state of being, Microsoft knows precisely what's best for you. It knows that because its well-implemented new Sleep mode uses very little electricity and also takes only two or three seconds to either shut down or restart, you want to use this mode to 'turn off' your computer, whether you realize it or not. It wants to teach you about what's best. It wants to make it harder for you to make a mistake."
2. It's only slightly shorter than War & Peace.
Seriously, remember back when you could read an entire article on one page instead of clicking through 20+ pages so the site could bump up the number of ad impressions they score? Man, that was great.
Every year during my review, I just pray the words "slashdot.org" aren't mentioned.
You've probably had a relative, friend, girlfriend or a kid like this: whatever you do for them, it's never f*cking enough.
.NET2
Microsoft: what do you want in Vista
General consumer market: we want security, we want more neat graphics (like OSX!), we want better sleep mode, we want more games
Developers: we want a better and robust programming framework that's capable and fully OOP
Microsoft: ok here's Vista, we give you more security, more neat graphics, better sleep mode, more games; to developers, we give you WinFX, a brand new programming model based on
Developers: Screw your programming model, it locks me into Windows, managed code is slow, I can't run it on XP without 100MB of runtime installs and so on
General consumer market: we don't want SO much security, we don't want SO much graphics, we don't want the sleep mode SO much, and your games suck
Should't it be titled "20 Things You Might Not Like About Windows Vista Should These Features Remain In The Final Release 6 Months From Now"?
Sure, there may only be around 6 months or so to go before Vista supposedly becomes available to OEMs and whatnot. While that likely will translate into a lot of the "things" the author takes a disliking to making it into the final build due to time crunch, it does not mean everything is signed, sealed, and delivered. I've never understood the point of articles like this; telling me what I won't like based upon somebody else's opinions on a product that won't be available for at least another half a year. Things do change, even with the folks at Redmond, or so I'm told.
If big boobed women work at Hooters do one legged women work at IHOP?
Everything about this article seems kind of strange. Better security is mostly a good thing, especially for an OS as traditionally as insecure as Windows, isn't it?
It knows that because its well-implemented new Sleep mode uses very little electricity and also takes only two or three seconds to either shut down or restart, you want to use this mode to 'turn off' your computer, whether you realize it or not.
Um... I mostly use Macs, and I almost NEVER shut them off, for that very reason. I'm sure once Windows users finally have a sleep mode that actually fucking works like it's supposed to, they will also discover that simply closing the laptop lid (or selecting "Sleep" instead of "Shut Down" on their desktops), and being ready to do stuff in a manner of seconds when you come back to it, is a far, far nicer way to live as well.
Information wants to be anthropomorphized.
Tux fans totally skipped the article
Windows applogists accuse author of being an OS X fanboi
OS X fans didn't read the article and simply stated how Vista is a lame rehash of Cheeta/Puma/Jaguar/Panther/Tiger/Leopard
People who RTFA recognize the author is both nit picking Beta software and pointing out Microsoft's overarching issue for two decades - user interface built upon system functionality instead of the other way around.
People who will actually buy Vista and/or use it on a regular basis type away mindlessly at their desks, unaware of the storm that brews on Slashdot
I only came here to do two things; kick some ass, and drink some beer...looks like we're almost out of beer.
From the Coke can to my keyboard... by way of my nose.
:)
Post of the month.
Information wants to be anthropomorphized.
Depends on how it's done. Poorly designed security (that gets in your way, and interupts needlessly and annoyingly) gets turned off, or worked around. Turning it off may include installing XP.
Security isn't just 'lock things up by default', it is thinking about what needs to be locked, when it needs to be locked, and how is the best way to unlock it when that is necisary.
'Sensible' is a curse word.
Let's see... 250 million copies of vista (let's call it $100 each)
;)
200 million copies of office (let's call it $150 each)
$55 billion... in two years... just for Vista and Office on new machines? We can debate whether or not this product will sell well, but I don't see MS going bankrupt with those numbers
--------------------- -me, Crusher of those who are Foolish (don't be foolish)
Incidently, that no longer makes it a peer network (workgroup) but instead relies on a hierarchy (domain).
I've never had problems with seeing shares on a domain either...
agreed. password prompts do not a secure system make.
Anyway, I'm sure you know all this, but not everyone seems to appreciate this fact.
a maze with all the protect-you-from-yourself password-entry and 'Continue' boxes
If anything, than this provides solid proof that MS is unable to learn from mistakes. Read Confirmation Dialogs harmful for a glance of what's been going through the heads of a lot of security professionals the past few years (disclaimer: including me): That the whole "are you sure?" bullshit is a huge fiasco. The only thing it did was train users to click "Ok" or "Continue" without bothering to read the actual text. If there wouldn't be such a slobbering mass of 'em, the dialogs might be taken seriously, but there is and they aren't.
I said it a couple months ago, and I still stand by it: Vista is a trainwreck happening in slow-motion. It's horrible to behold.
Assorted stuff I do sometimes: Lemuria.org
Actually, it does frequently pay the developer for adding on features and documentation/training, if 3rd parties want them. But that's beside the point -- you can sell GPL software that you wrote correctly from scratch. Sure, other people can try to sell it as well, but they can't guarantee support from the person who wrote it in the first place. So sell a GPL product. The people who would pirate it anyway will get it for free elsewhere, and you'll make money selling to those who want the option of support from the original developer, as well as added interest in their feature requests for the next version.
Slashdot needs a "-1, Wrong" moderation option.
The Urban Hippie
So who is forcing you to write open source as your only occupation?
I can leave my powerbook asleep for 6 days before it runs out of battery. I can leave it off for.... 6 days before it runs out of battery. That tells me that the amount of electricity I'd be saving by shutting down instead of sleeping is too small to measure casually. Regardless of what you may think, the self-refresh mode of modern DRAM is very efficient, to the point where I wouldn't be surprised if you used more electricity booting up once then you do in sleep mode all day. A pair of AAs could probably refresh your computer's DRAM for a month or longer (depending on how much you have, of course).
This may not be the case on some PCs. Mac sleep mode is legendary for how good it is, and PC sleep mode is notorious for how bad it is... Some of my PCs leave the fans spinning in sleep mode, for example. Others work great. I make no arguments or excuses for shitty components.
Why the privledge[sic] escalation feature will only help competent people, clueless users will just treat it as another, annoying, hoop to jump through. They'l just blanketly[sic] issue the password when asked, without thinking if this is really an action that should need higher privlidges[sic]. I've already seen the same behaviour[sic] from OS-X users and from Windows users with regards to downloaded files.
From what I've read of the implementation, I agree with your assessment. I would like to stress, however, that this is due to the crappy UI implementation more than anything else. Almost all users (even OS X users) have been conditioned by years of being given (OK)(Cancel) dialogue boxes with poorly phrased technobabble inside. clicking "OK" is what you do to make you computer do stuff. It's like putting gas in a car to make it run.
Sadly this atrocious UI design has been copied elsewhere, including in some OS X applications. To implement this properly users should not be given a "continue" button. They should be given two or more real actions as options. For example, "The program 'Aliens8' would like to change your monitor resolution. (Allow it to change resolution one time)(Always let it change the resolution)(Don't let it change the resolution)(Configure Advanced Settings)."
In the above example, the user is given real choices. They have to read it to pick one. They can't click "OK or "Continue" a million times until it is second nature.
It is also important to note that these dialogues should be kept to a minimum. For example, on most home user systems, there is no reason the default settings should not allow all users to configure the resolutions for their own login within normal ranges and without being asked for permission. Making these dialogue boxes rare will make users pay more attention to them as well.
With Vista hopefully we'll (eventually) be able to have the admins use normal acocunts, and just escalate as needed. However I've got now illusions that this will provide any overall increase in security for home users.
Until MS gets serious about making their own software and apps created with the default settings in their dev tools work in non-privileged accounts and provide a VM or other such accommodation for legacy applications, I don't see a lot of hope for this. And you're right, it won't do much for regular user security except convince people that security is the opposite of usability. This poorly designed interface will just annoy most people.
In the Windows world, "browse the web" means to download/install/execute potentially-hostile code and run it with full privileges with access right down to the hardware, all without any more user-interaction than a mouse click or two. Are you sure you "never change anything"? ;-)
As copyright owner of this comment, I authorize everyone to defeat any technological measure which limits access to it.
1. It's not "insecure by design".
2. "Everyone else" has since gone on to do it as well, making the argument that it was done to "put a competitor at a disadvantage" rather shaky.