Windows Vista
From: “Scot’s NewsLetter”
by Scot Finnie
A Preview of the new version of Windows, due late 2006, according to
Microsoft.
I’ve been a journalist for over 20 years. I’ve worked on staff at several
computer magazines and online publications, including: PC/Computing,
FamilyPC, ZDNet, and Windows Magazine. I’ve also written articles for
CNET, PC Magazine, PC World, MacWeek, Byte, ComputerWorld, PC Today,
Personal Computing, Computer Life, Popular Science, and Popular Mechanics.
”Six (and More?) Versions of Windows Vista”
Microsoft has finally let the cat out of the bag on the different versions
of Windows Vista it will offer when the new operating system ships late this
year. The software giant currently plans to offer six versions of Windows
Vista. A seventh version for the European Union is a possibility; it would
lack Windows Media Player, but Microsoft didn’t address that point. And
don’t be surprised if there are various other flavors developed for other
international markets. What we know about so far are the six versions that
Microsoft announced on February 26 in this press release.
Pricing has not been announced yet, but you can bet some of these versions
of Vista will be relatively inexpensive. Why? Because a couple of them are
heavily stripped down.
There will be three consumer versions and two business versions of Windows
Vista. I’ll come back to the sixth version, Windows Vista Starter, in few
moments. None of the new Windows SKUs (stock keeping units) directly
equates to Windows XP Pro, Windows XP Home, Windows XP for Tablet PC,
Windows XP Media Center, or Windows XP 64-bit Edition. And yet the
corresponding XP editions are covered in the new version of Windows.
Microsoft has decided to wrap versions around core business and core
consumer functionalities, expanding each grouping to include extended
functionalities. So, for example, Tablet PC functionality is available in
both business and consumer flavors, and it’s available in three different
versions of Vista.
Windows Vista Ultimate, which Microsoft describes as a consumer version
(probably because businesses will be loathe to spend for it) is the
everything-and-the-kitchen-sink edition. It merges all the features and
functionalities of all the other Vista client versions. Windows Vista
Starter is at the opposite end of the spectrum with the least number of
features. Quoting the press release directly:
“Microsoft ... will offer Windows Vista Starter in emerging markets.
Windows Vista Starter is designed to empower families and entry-level PC
users in these markets to experience the world of social and educational
benefits that personal computer technology and the Internet makes possible.
A 32-bit operating system designed specifically for lower-cost computers,
Windows Vista Starter enables popular beginner PC activities and provides an
easy-to-use and more affordable entry point to the Windows Vista family of
products.”
The four versions in between Ultimate and Starter are divided between
Business and Consumer flavors:
Windows Vista Business offers full support for Vista’s high-end Aero
graphics, which includes more finely detailed, very small graphical
elements, as well as transparency, reflections, and better 3D rendering. It
will also have integrated desktop search features. And it will include
Windows Vista Tablet PC functionalities for computers that support them.
The up-level business version, Windows Vista Enterprise, will sold only via
Microsoft’s enterprise licensing program. It includes full hard-drive
encryption, expanded application compatibility, and a Unix emulation module
for running Unix applications.
The consumer lineup starts with Windows Vista Basic. Think of this version
of Vista as being about half a notch below Windows XP Home Edition. Vista
Basic will lack integrated desktop search features and will support only the
base level Vista graphics. For more on the tiered graphics support in
Windows Vista, see this older review of Vista, under the subhead “Graphics
Tiering.”
Windows Vista Premium is a big jump up from Vista Basic. In addition to the
integrated desktop search functionality and support for Aero graphics, Vista
Home Premium adds both Media Center and Tablet PC support. It also provides
integrated DVD burning, Windows Media Player 11 recording and sharing, and
high-def support in Windows Movie Maker.
Moving up to Windows Vista Ultimate adds a package called Windows Vista
Ultimate Extras, which is empty in the February CTP (Community Technology
Preview). It appears the Extras will be offered online via Windows Update,
so they can be added at any time by Microsoft. Published reports also state
(but I have not verified this yet) that Vista Ultimate adds remote desktop,
IIS, and scanning and faxing. If it’s true that Vista Home Premium does not
contain remote desktop functionality, that’s a truly annoying limitation.
Microsoft has previously said that 64-bit support would be included in the
box with most versions of Windows Vista. A statement in the press release,
though, implies that there might be separate 32-bit and 64-bit versions.
Which is it?
With the release of the February CTP pre-release version of Windows Vista
(see next article), beta testers and reviewers are finally able to install
most of the different versions of Vista. So expect more information about
the differences between the SKUs in the near future.
So what’s the fallout of the new division of Windows versions? There’s a
certain logic to what Microsoft is doing, and the flavors of Windows Vista
will be more distinct and offer competitive advantages. This will help OEM
PC makers differentiate their products, for example. It might help drive
Microsoft’s enterprising licensing program.
But for people buying new PCs, the new versioning could create a caveat
emptor (buyer beware) situation. There will be lots of different versions
of Windows that might arrive on a new desktop or standard notebook PC.
Where today the choices are usually between two versions for most desktops,
under Vista there could be three or four possible choices on Vista consumer
and small business PCs. PC buyers will need to watch out that they don’t
buy too little Windows Vista or too much. Until we see the actual pricing,
it’s tough to put the entire picture in focus.
PCs that come with Windows Vista Basic should probably sell for well under
$500. They don’t truly support the full graphics capability of Windows
Vista’s new Avalon graphics subsystem, and more than likely their makers
will have cut corners on performance and expandability. On the other hand,
Vista Home Basic should at least be considered by anyone intending to buy a
Vista upgrade for an older PC.
Finally, a nod to Ed Bott for his exploration and outing of Microsoft’s plan
to make Windows Vista consumer version upgrades available from the Windows
Anytime Upgrade Control Panel.
The idea behind this is that if you suddenly upgrade your video card and
want to take advantage of Aero, for example, you can use this tool to pay
for an upgrade via credit card and then download it and install it in much
the same fashion that millions of Windows XP owners downloaded and installed
Windows XP Service Pack 2. Check out Bott’s blog for screen shots of part
of the Windows Anytime Upgrade process, along with his astute comments.
Windows Vista - February CTP (or Beta 2, Release 1)
Let’s not wade through the big introduction to get to the good stuff.
Here’s what I think you want to know: Just what is the Windows Vista
Sidebar, and should you hate it?
I was prepared to, I’ll admit. The giant Start menu is bad enough. And I
know my desktop is going to be littered with desktop icons, no matter what
Microsoft tries to do about it. So what did I want with yet another block
of graphical goodies taking up space and getting in the way?
The last version of the Sidebar I used was the one Microsoft distributed
with the first widespread alpha release of Vista, from Microsoft’s October
2003 Professional Developers Conference, and it was your quintessential tall
graphical rectangle taking up a bunch of space, with no real use
whatsoever. I disliked it, and that’s why I was prepared to dislike this
version.
The Windows Sidebar is a little thin on stuff to put in it right now, but
Microsoft’s designers and programmers did an excellent job in designing and
implementing this tool. It’s not going to get in your way, at all. And yet
it’s handy.
There’s no getting around the fact that Microsoft got the Sidebar right,
though. It uses transparency to excellent effect. You don’t feel like part
of your desktop is taken away. Even when you set the Sidebar to its most
aggressively screen-robbing setting, “Keep the Sidebar on top of the other
windows,” it doesn’t shrink your desktop size. Other program windows that
overlap the Sidebar merely slide under it, and you can still see them
because the Sidebar column is transparent. Two other settings give you full
control. You can make it so that app windows appear on top of the Sidebar,
so it’s just part of the background. And, of course, you can turn it off.
In build 5308, it’s turned off by default. Another positive point is that
the Sidebar doesn’t seem as system resource hungry as the earlier version
from October 2003.
The Feed Viewer Gadget let’s you directly access headlines displayed from
live RSS feeds in your IE7 feed store.
I’ve told you about the Sidebar itself, but let’s get to the reason why you
would want this new structure on your desktop. Anyone who has seen Apple’s
Widgets in OS X Tiger will immediately get the idea when I say that the
Sidebar is designed to display Gadgets, little single-purpose .XML-based
applets that will (hopefully) offer useful functionalities. In Windows
Vista’s February CTP (Community Technology Preview), build 5308, also known
as the Enterprise CTP, the number of useful gadgets is quite small.
Microsoft included five Gadgets: Feed Viewer, Launcher, Recycle Bin, Slide
Show, and World Clock. Recycle Bin is really only useful if you don’t
already have Recycle Bin on your desktop or would prefer to change the look
of Windows’ trash can. World Clock is a glorified version of the system
clock from the system tray. It’s an analog clock that shows your part of
the world as a background in its face. Slide Show lets you display a small
image or run a slide show. Launcher is a container into which you can drag
and drop program icons for one-click launching. In other words, it’s very
similar in functionality to the Quick Launch toolbar that appears next to
the Start button. Feed Viewer lets you display feeds that are saved to
Windows Vista’s new feed store, a feature included with Internet Explorer
7.
The Launcher Gadget is a very simple but effective tool not unlike the Quick
Launch toolbar that appears beside the Start button.
There’s enough in the sample pack of Gadgets Microsoft offers to play around
with Sidebar, but before Sidebar will be truly valuable to Vista users, a
developer community will have to grow up around Gadgets. One already
materialized around Microsoft’s Windows Live Gadgets. Windows Live offers
Web-based applets and software designed to run in Internet Explorer.
Unfortunately, it appears that Gadgets written for Windows Live don’t work
in Windows Vista Sidebar, and possibly vice versa. And at this writing,
none of the Gadgets available on the Microsoft Gadgets website (which is
linked to directly from the user interface in the Sidebar’s Settings area)
was designed for Sidebar. I could only find one third-party Gadget, though
I continue to hunt for them. I expect several to become available in the
near future, but if you’ve found one that works and is useful, tell me about
it.
The World Clock Gadget adds the aesthetic of analog to your digital
desktop. It’s just visually a breath of fresh air. Don’t forget to turn on
the second hand.
Delayed Introduction
You didn’t think you were going to get away entirely, uh, Scot-free, did
you? [Editor’s Note: Uh, no, honey. I unfortunately gave up on all that the
day we said “I do.”—Cyndy] There are things you need to know. So now that
I’ve covered the most visible new feature in this build of Windows Vista,
let’s get to some of the nitty gritty.
Windows Vista Build 5308 is the first build that is nearly feature
complete. It’s also the first build that allows testers to install the five
major flavors of Vista that will be offered when the OS ships: Windows Vista
Business, Windows Vista Enterprise, Windows Vista Home Basic, Windows Vista
Home Premium, and Windows Vista Ultimate. (See the article above for more
on the different flavors of Vista.) The research for this story was based on
Windows Vista Ultimate. Microsoft has not released a features-comparison
table that shows what’s offered (or not offered) in the various Vista SKUs.
It’s going to take people like me a while to install all those flavors and
figure out what’s different. Morevoer, even if we had the comparison data
right now, there’s every possibility that it could change in the final
versions of Vista.
The Windows Vista desktop, displaying the new Start menu and the vertical
Sidebar on the right.
What does “nearly feature complete” mean, and is this Beta 2 of Windows
Vista? Microsoft claims that the February CTP (Community Technology
Preview), also known as the Enterprise CTP, has all the programs, applets,
and primary functionalities in place that Microsoft currently intends to
ship in at least one of the final versions of Vista. But that doesn’t mean
all the features and functionalities will look, act, or perform the way they
do in build 5308. Very likely aspects will be added or trimmed, and
hopefully, they will run better too.
As to the Beta 2 question — which may be more important to reporters and
reviewers than to you — Microsoft has elevated that to an existential
question. Is it Beta 2, or have all the CTP releases been Beta 2? I can
tell you that up until about December of last year, Microsoft was intending
to release a feature-complete build called Beta 2. And build 5308 is that
release. On the other hand, Microsoft is calling this the Enterprise CTP
mostly because the enterprise features are ready, and it wants enterprises
to test this version now to give it more time to bake in strongly requested
changes. The consumer marketplace doesn’t have anywhere near as strong a
lobby (it is entirely the OEM PC makers). Microsoft’s bread is buttered on
the business side.
So, that’s why Vista Beta 2, Release 2 (my nomenclature), is expected
“sometime in the second quarter.” That CTP will target the consumer-oriented
features in Vista, and it will likely have a slew of changes and be a
significant release. In a recent press briefing, Microsoft hinted that
there will be CTP releases to follow the next one as well.
Windows Media Player 11 gets an heavily revised interface with many
usability improvements. In Windows Home Premium and above, you can share
and access other media libraries.
Is Microsoft on track to ship Vista this year? Yes, absolutely. Expect the
code to freeze by early October, and that Vista PCs will be in vogue
everywhere for most if not all of the holiday selling season.
This review is one of a series of Windows Vista articles that have been
published in Scot’s Newsletter over the last two or three years. Please
refer back to the more recent ones to learn more about aspects of Windows
Vista not covered in this story:
# Windows Vista December Beta - Plus, Issues with Multiboot?
# Visual Tour: Windows Vista Begins to Get Real - Desktop Pipeline
# Visual Tour: Image Gallery - Desktop Pipeline
# Windows Vista October CTP Pre-Beta 2
# The September ‘CTP’ Beta of Windows Vista
# New Internet Explorer 7 Features Revealed - InternetWeek
# The Insider’s Guide to Windows Vista Beta 1
Pulling Back on Virtual Folders
One of the unsurprising changes in build 5308 is that part of the Virtual
Folders feature, which has never really worked properly in any of the
previous builds of the product, is absent. Some of the more performance
challenging pre-built virtual folders present in earlier builds that are not
visible in build 5308 are All Music, Albums, All Documents, All Videos, and
Authors. The pre-configured saved searches that are included in build 5308
include Attachments, Last 7 Days E-mail, Last 30 Days Documents, Unread
E-mail, and several others. The part that appears to have died is the
notion of using search to populate virtual folders that would represent more
broad, comprehensive listings, like All Documents and so forth.
That doesn’t mean the virtual folder notion is gone. You can save keyword
searches across the entire Windows Vista index and then open them later.
That view presents all the files related to your keyword presented visually
in one folder, even though they actually reside in multiple folders on your
hard drive. The files in Saved Searches are the actual files presented in a
folder that is not literally a hard disk directory. You’re not dealing with
file shortcuts. The folder gives you a new way to view your data. All
along, I’ve felt that Microsoft should find a better way to differentiate
the presentation of virtual folders to help people understand that this is
something different. I don’t think a different color works. They should
just label it something like a “Collection folder.”
Windows Mail is the new name for Outlook Express. The upgrade is modest,
with most of what’s new focusing on mail-store search and junk-mail
filtering.
You can also stack (or roll up hierarchically) virtual folders by one
additional criterion, such as Kinds, Authors, Keywords, etc. But the
differences between Stack By, Group By, and Sort By are still likely to
confuse most Windows users. When you work with your data in Saved Searches
like this, it’s very easy to lose track of the significance of what you’re
looking at.
I also continue to run into bugs and inconsistencies with this
functionality, which has never worked properly — especially since Microsoft
removed WinFS, its next generation file system, from Windows Vista. For
example, I created and saved a search called Cyndy, but when I attempted to
reopen it, Vista build 5308 repeatedly opened the Favorite Music saved
search. [Editor’s Note: That’s because I’m your favorite everything, right?
--Cyndy.] And performance continues to be an issue, not with the indexing
process so much as with creating and later opening Saved Searches.
As the desktop search and virtual folder functionality is built into the
operating system now, it’s not going to wow you. There continue to be
search fields everywhere, but the actual functionality just isn’t all that
different from what’s in Windows XP. After you open a Saved Search, there’s
no clear way to get back to the Saved Searches folder either. The Back
button doesn’t always work properly in this setting; so your only real
option is the graphical breadcrumbs (address bar) feature. In fact,
navigation in Windows Vista appears to be more of challenge in this build.
Earlier versions of the new OS let you customize folder windows toolbars
with the Up button. And some folders that used to have the folder tree
don’t any longer. Microsoft’s insistence on turning off the classic File
menu by default is another annoying user interface direction. Don’t mess
with what we already know!
The Welcome Center is designed to help first-time Vista users take care of
tasks like making sure their hardware is properly configured and adding new
user accounts.
Lotsa New Programs
For Vista, Microsoft is doing something it really hasn’t done with this
level of commitment in quite some time. It’s heavily updating and adding to
the onboard programs that come with Windows. (I can hear the howls for new
anti-trust proceedings already.) All of these programs and applets come with
Windows Vista: Windows Media Player 11, Internet Explorer 7, Windows Mail
(Outlook Express), Window Defender, Sidebar, Welcome Center, Windows Photo
Gallery, Windows Calendar, Windows Movie Maker HD, Windows Firewall, Windows
Fax and Scan, Windows Collaboration, Windows Easy Transfer (Migration
Wizard), Connect to a Network Projector, Sync Center, Windows DVD Maker,
Memory Diagnostic, Task Scheduler, and others. Control Panel sports several
other tools that I’ve written about in recent stories, but they include
AutoPlay, Backup and Restore, BitLocker Driver Encryption, Mobility Center,
Network Center, Parental Controls, Performance Rating and Tools,
Personalization (wayward re-implementation of Display Properties), and
Windows SideShow (for mobile computers with auxiliary displays).
This is by no means an exhaustive study of all these news bits in Vista, but
let me walk through the high points:
# Windows Media Player 11 offers a brand new interface and expanded content
offerings, including MTV’s music service, Urge. There are a lot of
customization features, and the online access to data about artists and
albums appears to work better than previous versions. It also connects to
more types of hardware, and the CD-burning controls are easier to work
with. I don’t see explicit features for podcasting, but maybe they’re
coming.
# The IE7 vs. Everyone Else “browser wars” feature, which I helped dream up
and co-authored, has a lot of detail about the current version of IE7.
Check it out.
# Windows Mail is Microsoft’s new name for Outlook Express. I think the
name says it all, really. Microsoft might move to downsize this email
client in the future. Right now, the biggest new features center around
searching mail and junk mail filtering. I’m not a big Outlook Express fan,
but it seems to me from a cursory inspection that it’s not a major departure
from the current version.
# The latest version of Windows Defender, which is included in Vista build
5308 and also available for public download to be installed on Windows XP,
Windows 2000, and Windows Server 2003, is covered elsewhere in this issue of
the newsletter. Check it out below.
# The Welcome Center is designed mostly for the first few starts after you
get Vista. Currently it offers four modules aimed at common early usage
scenarios. The modules help you set up devices, add or remove user
accounts, view system information, and transfer files from one computer to
another. I’m happy to say there’s a check box that lets you turn it off,
because the default behavior is to open each time Windows loads.
Windows Photo Gallery is a delightfully versatile image-viewing and editing
utility that should come in very handy for most consumer and business
users.
# Windows Photo Gallery makes the job of working with images much easier
than any tool that came with Windows in the past. Loosely based on a long
line of fairly useless Microsoft image viewing tools, such as Microsoft
Office Picture Manager, Windows Photo Gallery incorporates some of the file
attributes and tags that Microsoft’s been working on for virtual folders to
help you sort images faster. It also uses Vista’s new graphics
functionality to create rapid pop-up previews. Perhaps the biggest boon,
though, is the image-editing features, which include color and exposure
adjustments, as well as a red-eye fix and an automatic adjustment feature,
which is admirably restrained, but probably only truly useful in a pinch.
The red-eye fix works great though. Don’t expect to be able to dump
PhotoShop, but Photo Gallery will be useful for lots of folks.
# How many times have you wished for a basic calendar in Windows? The
Windows Calendar is a basic appointment keeper that offers daily, weekly,
and monthly views. You can publish to and subscribe from other people’s
Windows Calendars over a LAN. The main thing that’s missing is holidays.
A lot of Vista’s applets and programs are pretty buggy in this build, and
aren’t really worth deep assessment at this time. I’ve covered the newest
bundled programs, and will come back and revisit the point later.
Windows Calendar plugs an obvious hole among the basic applets that come
with Windows. It let’s you share calendars with others, but doesn’t display
holidays.
Sinking Feeling About Security
One of the most annoying aspects of Windows Vista is how frequently it pops
up a box asking whether it should open something that I’ve specifically
directed it to do. It’s also surprising how frequently it tells me that I
can’t delete this or that folder. Even folders that you’d think are outside
its purview to monitor can be problematic. Most of the time I’ve been
running Vista not with the Administrator login, but with Administrator
rights. I password protect my user accounts. Right now, the overall user
experience is pretty terrible.
Here’s a typical experience. I go to open a Windows utility or control that
Vista considers to be potentially dangerous. A box pops up with big letters
reading: “Windows needs your permission to use this program.” The options
are to Allow or Cancel. If you click Allow, in most cases you get where you
were intending to go.
This pop-up box requires you to click the Allow button to accomplish things
that just launched without a prompt in previous versions of Windows. Is
this is the final user experience, Microsoft has a problem.
It’s the same kind of overblown security impinging on the user experience
that Microsoft loaded into IE6 for Windows XP Service Pack 2. All those
pop-up windows and “info bars” rapidly set me in motion away from Internet
Explorer. And if I begin to feel like the idiot who has to click the OK box
over and over again in Vista, I’ll be a Macintosh guy in a heartbeat.
If this is all Microsoft can do to truly sandbox Windows, foist the
responsibility on the end-user to double check everything, it’s a really sad
state of affairs. Let’s hope that I’m wrong, that Microsoft has worked out
something better. Wouldn’t it be nice if they briefed the reviewing press
on these things?
Control Panel has grown ridiculously large in Vista; it’s jam-packed with
new stuff. If you look closely, you’ll even notice a bug: It has two Power
Options applets.
Enterprise Emphasis
The one thing Microsoft did brief us on, ad nauseum, is all the many
enterprise-level features in the 5308 build. They’re hoping to entice
enterprise IT managers to set up testing to evaluate the new client
operating system (so they’ll complain about what they don’t like while
Microsoft has a chance to do something about it).
All kidding aside, Microsoft has put a lot of thought into how to make it
easier for IT departments to plan, test, build, and deploy Vista in
corporate environments. To get an overview, check out the Microsoft Windows
Vista Enterprise CTP Fact Sheet.
Sunset
This is the first widespread build of Windows Vista that is good enough to
run as an everyday operating system. While I’m not recommending that, it’s
at least possible. Running on a 2-plus-year-old Pentium 4 3GHz machine with
1GB RAM, fairly fast hard drives, a very fast 128MB video card, performance
is noticeably slow here and there, but not terrible. Although many of the
things you don’t use very often are a little buggy, the stuff you use
frequently runs fine.
Windows Mobility Center wasn’t able to hook up with the Brightness controls
on my ThinkPad T43, but it’s nice to have the syncing, display, and other
controls in one handy place.
The personality of the next version of Windows is beginning to emerge in
build 5308. Microsoft has done an excellent job with the Sidebar and
Internet Explorer. The Start menu is significantly refined, although no one
will be surprised by it. The task bar and notification area work as you
expect them to. The most startling aspect of the product is its fast
vector-based graphics, which when properly executed, open effortlessly and
add visual cues we’ve never experienced in Windows before. New applications
like Windows Defender and Photo Gallery are welcome additions to the
operating system. There’s a lot to like about this version of Windows.
Contrasting with the many positives, though, is Microsoft’s relentless
insistence on security at all costs. And while I’m a big supporter of
security hardening, especially for desktop computers, which are the leakiest
part of the equation, I’m not willing to compromise the user experience to
get there. It’s early yet, but Microsoft may not be quite as concerned
about that as I am — or as I believe most of you are.
The next CTP is the true full-fledged Beta 2 we’ve been waiting for, and
that’s traditionally where I have begun to offer deeper assessment and
opinion about a new version of Windows. So keep an eye out for my coverage
of the Vista Consumer CTP (in May?), or whatever Microsoft decides to call
it.
Scot Finnie
March
2006
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