Mossberg - Vista Is Worthy, Largely Unexciting

Carl Bialik from WSJ writes "Wall Street Journal tech columnist Walter S. Mossberg says Vista is the best version of Windows yet, but doesn't represent a major step forward: 'Overall, it works pretty much the same way as Windows XP.' More from the review: 'Nearly all of the major, visible new features in Vista are already available in Apple's operating system, called Mac OS X, which came out in 2001 and received its last major upgrade in 2005. ... in my tests, some elements of Vista could be maddeningly slow even on new, well-configured computers. Also, despite Vista's claimed security improvements, you will still have to run, and keep updating, security programs, which can be annoying and burdensome. Microsoft has thrown in one such program free, but you will have to buy at least one more. That means that, while Vista has eased some of the burden on users imposed by the Windows security crisis, it will still force you to spend more time managing the computer than I believe people should have to devote.'"

Comments

My 2c

[Toreo asesino]

Vista is indeed a worthy improvement, but not a worthy upgrade. I'd buy it on a new PC, but in no way buy it outright...

UAC is one of the biggest improvements in my opinion; not in that it makes Windows nicer to use (far from it in fact), but that finally, Windows has adopted a more *nix based approach to user-security (in at least, you don't have to be a full admin to do anything useful, and full-admin rights are difficult to obtain) and thank god for that!

But like I say, I'm not rushing out to buy it...and not many people will either if you ask me.

Issues of trust...

[fahrbot-bot]

I've played with Vista a little bit. It is prettier than XP and I could see some interesting and promising features in the new OS, but I have issues with the DRM and security model.

The DRM embedded in Vista has been well hashed here and I believe the implementation will cause many people headaches, especially those wanting to view digital media.

I'm concerned about the new security levels of the OS and that there are two levels higher than Administrator, namely System and Trusted. The sticking point for me is that (as far as I know) no user on the system, not even the admin, can access these higher levels. In other words, we are not and cannot be "trusted".

I don't like the idea that there may be things on *my* computer that I cannot access, but Microsoft, or other entities they trust, can. I'm not sure I trust them that much...