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Windows
Vista is Microsoft's first new operating system
in more than five years and the successor to
Windows XP. However, it is not worth rushing out
to purchase. If you desperately need to buy a
new PC (if your old one died or you've been
waiting and waiting for Vista to be released),
then by all means do so; there's nothing wrong
with Windows Vista. But there's no one
compelling feature within Windows Vista that
cries out to switch over, neither the enhanced
graphic capabilities (Aero) nor the improved
system performance features (truthfully, our
Windows XP doesn't crash). As for security,
Microsoft's biggest improvements in Windows
Vista are within the Enterprise or 64-bit
editions, editions most home users will not be
running. Windows Vista is not the Apple Mac OS X
10.4 killer one hoped for (or feared). Nor are
there specific big-name software packages
written exclusively for Windows Vista--most
software available today is compatible with both
Windows XP and Windows Vista. But the extensive
tie-ins to Microsoft.com and Live.com, and the
many, many interdependences upon Internet
Explorer 7 left us desperately wanting more (and
often best-of-breed) alternatives. Hard core
Microsofties who live and breathe within the
MSN, Live.com, and Microsoft desktop software
ecosystem will rejoice with the release of
Windows Vista, but for the rest of us who are
product agnostic, who use Firefox, Google
Desktop, ZoneAlarm, GMail, and Corel WordPerfect,
Windows XP SP2 will suffice nicely until some
killer program necessitates that we all upgrade
to Windows Vista.
There are six major editions of Windows Vista;
we're reviewing four. We chose not to review
Windows Vista Enterprise (available only to
volume license customers) and Windows Vista
Starter (available only outside the United
States). Windows Vista Ultimate includes
everything, and this is the edition getting the
most promotion from Microsoft. It is not the
edition most people will find packaged on their
shiny new PCs or will end up with after an
upgrade of existing hardware. See our feature
comparison chart to know which edition is right
for your specific needs, and check the following
individual reviews for more details:
Setup and installation
The Windows Vista DVD disc includes a Windows
Imaging (WIM) format of the code, so whether you
buy the Home Basic edition or the Ultimate
edition, the code remains the same; only the
product key unlocks your specific set of
features. This means users who opt for the
lesser editions can always upgrade (assuming
they have the proper hardware) by downloading
some additional code and securing a new product
key online. However, all features--even if you
paid for them--are dependent on specific
hardware configurations being present; if you
don't have the proper graphics hardware, for
example, you'll simply never see the Aero
graphic effects on that old Dell computer in
your basement.
Hardware requirements for Windows Vista should
not be taken lightly. In a controversial move to
garner positive reviews, Microsoft sent hundreds
of bloggers (not including CNET) free copies of
Windows Vista Ultimate; Microsoft did not send
boxed copies, rather the software giant sent
top-of-the-line Acer Ferrari laptops with the
operating system preinstalled. So even Microsoft
seems to admit that the best performance is only
available on top-of-the-line machines
manufactured within the last year or so.
That said, many people will still want to
upgrade their current Windows XP SP2. This will
keep all your current data and applications,
importing them directly into the new operating
system. To see which edition(s) of Windows Vista
your current computer can handle, visit the
Windows Vista Upgrade Advisor to find specific
hardware recommendations so you don't buy the
wrong edition. Most people will find either
Windows Vista Home Basic or Windows Vista Home
Premium to be their best choice. While Windows
Vista does make a backup of your previous
operating system before installing, it is always
recommended that you backup your current Windows
XP system yourself, just in case.
Rather than upgrade, we recommend you perform a
clean installation. With a clean installation,
you keep all your current on the Windows XP
drive and install only the data and applications
you want to run on
Windows Vista. A clean
install can be accomplished by buying a new PC
with Windows Vista already installed,
partitioning an existing Windows XP machine to
dual-boot into Windows Vista, or adding a new
hard drive to an existing Windows XP machine.
Our clean installations took anywhere from 20
minutes to an hour, depending on the hardware in
the system. It's pretty much an automated
process, with the installer first copying the
WIM image onto the new hard drive or partition
then expanding that image. Once again, we
experienced an uncomfortably long plateau at "Expanding:
27 percent"; as with previous builds, we waited
between two and five minutes before the
expansion continued. About halfway through, the
installer reboots and continues the installation
in Windows Vista.
During the installation, Windows Vista will load
the drivers included within the installation
image, but it will also download additional
drivers from a much larger database at
Microsoft. This assumes, however, that one has
an always-on Internet connection; dial-up users
may find that upon completion of the
installation process some drivers are missing.
Once fully installed, Windows Vista first asks
for your country or region, then time and
currency, and, finally, the desired keyboard
layout. Next, you'll choose a username, a user
icon, and a password. Then select your desktop
wallpaper and security settings: Automatic,
Install Important Updates Only, or Ask Me Later.
After reviewing the computer's time and date
settings, there's one more message: "Please wait
while Windows checks your computer's performance."
Here, Microsoft grades your computer on a five-point
scale, with the overall rating based on your
system's lowest score (in our case, that was for
the video card).
Windows Vista includes new musical tones written
by veteran musician Robert Fripp. Compared to
the familiar start-up tones of Windows XP,
Windows Vista's are lighter, almost spritely.
The sounds for User Account Control and Log Off
are also perkier than those found in similar
security warnings within Windows XP.
New on the Windows Vista desktop is a Welcome
Center which contains links to frequently asked
questions such as, "How do you configure your
printer?" and "How do you connect to your
Internet service?" There is also room for some
sales opportunities, either with manufacturer
specials or online offers from Microsoft, such
as the Windows Live OneCare service. Frankly, we
think it is better for you to look beyond the
Windows ecosystem for e-mail, Internet browsers,
and security applications.
After closing the Welcome Center, you'll notice
to the far right there is a shaded sidebar
populated with three example Gadgets ("widgets"
to everyone else), tiny desktop applets that
display content, such as RSS feeds. In one
Gadget, a slide show of images from the sample
photo library display; in the next, the current
time; finally, there's a Gadget for subscribed
RSS feeds. We downloaded and installed Firefox
2, made Firefox our default browser, and quickly
set up a few RSS feed subscriptions. Guess what?
The Windows Vista Gadget was unresponsive to our
efforts, displaying only the default MSN feeds
from Microsoft. Microsoft says the default RSS
Gadget feeds off a common store of RSS feeds
within Windows Vista, and Firefox hasn't yet
adopted the API for that store. You have to use
Internet Explorer 7 or choose a Firefox-friendly
Gadget instead. By clicking the + symbol atop
the sidebar, you'll see a panel of available
Gadgets, with a link out to the Web to find even
more. The Gadgets are not fixed to the sidebar;
they can be dragged across the desktop. And even
the sidebar itself can be disabled to allow for
a full desktop view. An icon located within the
taskbar will restore the sidebar at any time.
The familiar Start menu features some cosmetic
changes for
Windows Vista. Aside from the
distinctive rounded icon, the Start menu now
includes a built-in Search function. We would
have preferred to have access to Search directly
from the desktop rather than digging down a
level or two. The All Programs list now displays
as an expandable/collapsible directory tree,
something Windows should have offered years ago.
The new Start menu is divided in half, with
access to documents, pictures, music, games,
recent items, My Computer, network, Control
Panel, default programs, and Help along the
right-hand side.
Also new within Start is an Instant Off button.
This button caches all your open files and
processes, allowing you to turn off your laptop
or desktop quickly without all the "cleaning up
files" messages you see in previous versions. We
like the feature, but on our Acer Travelmate
8200, Instant Off and closing the lid to
hibernate sometimes produced limbo states where
the laptop simply wouldn't wake up again,
forcing us to reboot.
In Windows Vista, files become unmoored from the
traditional directory tree structure--kind of.
The more ambitious plan of including a whole new
file system was scrapped early on; instead,
Windows Vista relies on metatags, which are
keywords linked to files to make them searchable.
With metatags, you can create virtual file
folders based on a variety of search terms. Say
you're doing a report on mountains, any file
that is keyword-enabled to include "mountains"
will be grouped into a virtual folder without
physically dragging that file to a new location.
The downside is that older files (say you
upgraded your system from Windows XP or imported
data from an earlier version of Windows) will
have to be retroactively metataged in order to
be searched. Also different is the file path
displayed within Windows Explorer. Gone are the
backslashes, replaced with arrows that offer
drop-down menus of alternative folders. We liked
this efficient feature.
Finally, there's a compatibility wizard buried
deep within Windows Vista. Most Windows XP
applications we loaded performed just fine.
Operating under the hood, Windows Vista
convinces native Windows XP applications that
they're running on Windows XP. Should you need
to run an older application, say from Windows
95, the compatibility wizard allows you to tweak
the display resolution and emulate Windows 95
for that program. For example, we were able to
run a Windows 95-optimized game demo on our
Windows Vista test system.
Features
Our gut feeling is that most of the significant
bells and whistles are designed for the
Enterprise-level customers, not the home user.
Having a large number of features should not be
confused with actually providing significant
value to all users across the board. We would
have preferred fewer features executed extremely
well rather than an uneven mix of this and that,
a one-size-fits-all operating system. And we
disagree with Microsoft's seemingly arbitrary
division of features within individual editions.
Common to all editions of Windows Vista are ad
hoc backup and recovery, instant Search,
Internet Explorer 7 browser, Windows Media
Player 11, Windows Mail e-mail client, Windows
Calendar, Windows Photo Gallery, performance
tuning and self-diagnostics, Internet protocol
IPv6 and IPv4 support, Windows ReadyDrive, a
maximum of 4GB RAM support on 32-bit editions (up
to 128GB RAM on some 64-bit editions), Windows
Sync Center for mobile devices, Windows Mobility
Center for presentations on the road, User
Account Control (UAC) security protection,
Windows Security Center, Windows Defender
antispyware, Windows Firewall, Windows Meeting
Space for ad hoc wireless meetings, Remote
Desktop for working from home, XPS document
support for PDF-like files, improved peer-to-peer
networking, improved VPN support, and improved
power management.
Home Premium users have built-in Parental
Controls that allow you to filter Web sites
visited as well as limit a user's Internet
access by specific hours; there are also online
gaming recommendations, with an easy-to-understand
industry rating system. Also, Windows Vista Home
Premium and Ultimate editions both give you
Windows Media Center, which has been redesigned
to better take advantage of online television
subscription services and home theater systems.
There's also built-in DVD-burning software, but
because most DVD players come with their own
software, we don't find this to be a significant
plus.
We disagree with the exclusion of Windows Fax
and Scan from Windows Vista Home Premium; you'll
now need to buy third-party fax software to send
that occasional facsimile. And Home Premium
users will have limited use of the built-in
Tablet PC features; this feature seems better
suited for the Business and Ultimate editions.
Performance
Upon installation, Windows Vista rates each
system's overall hardware performance, with the
final score reflecting your system's lowest
individual score. This is handy. For example, if
you suspect that everything's running a little
slow, you might find that your hard drive is
returning the lowest score. Windows Vista will
then recommend a faster hard drive or a drive
with larger compatibility. Mostly, though, the
video card will be the sore spot for most users.
There's also an event log viewer to show, for
example, after a specific software install your
system performance started to degrade, and that
uninstalling the software may restore your
overall performance.
Under the hood, Microsoft has moved device
drivers for DVD burners and printers out of the
system kernel; Microsoft says that a majority of
system crashes can be traced to improperly
installed third-party device drivers. Thus
Windows Vista hopes to vanquish the dreaded Blue
Screen of Death common to earlier releases of
Windows. Indeed, after testing several early
builds, we found Windows Vista to be remarkably
stable and robust.
Support
Along with the diagnostic and performance
monitors, Microsoft has improved the Help
section considerably. There is a static FAQ, but
it also links to Microsoft online and allows
outreach to other users for help, either via a
forum or direct PC-to-PC help. Of these, we
really like a feature available on some, not all,
FAQs that allows you to automate the solution by
executing a script. This method doesn't teach
you how to do it in the future, but it will
accomplish the task at hand. For example, if you
choose to update a device driver, Windows Vista
will darken the desktop; highlight and open the
Start menu, the Control Panel, and the Device
Manager; then pause to ask you what device you
want to update. It's like having a technician at
your desktop, walking you though the process.
There's an increasing reliance on user-generated
support forums, which leads us to believe that
Microsoft is shying away from its own live
technical support. At press time, Microsoft's
final support policy was unavailable.
Conclusion
Perhaps we're spoiled, but after more than five
years of development, there's a definite "Is
that all?" feeling about Windows Vista. Like
cramming an info-dump into a book report the
night before it's due, there certainly are a lot
of individual features within the operating
system, but the real value lies in their
execution--how the user experiences (or doesn't
experience) these--and like the info-dump, we
came away shaking our heads, disappointed.
Compared with Mac OS X 10.4, Windows Vista feels
clunky and not very intuitive, almost as though
it's still based on DOS (or at least the
internal logic that made up DOS). Despite the
addition of a system-wide, built-in Search, and
various efforts to break away from staidly old
directory trees, you still need to drill down
one level to even access Search. And there are
far too many dependencies on Microsoft products;
this is not a very objective operating system,
as preference is always given to Microsoft
products (of which there are many), from MSN
search to RSS feeds only from Internet Explorer.
But is Windows Vista a bad operating system? No.
It's just a disappointment for PC users who
hoped that Microsoft would deliver something
truly exciting to finally leapfrog ahead of
Apple. They failed. But stick around; this is
just Windows Vista 1.0. Windows Vista Service
Pack 1 is due out sometime before the end of the
year. Windows Vista SP1 promises to fix what's
known to be wrong within Windows Vista and
should offer a few concrete reasons to switch.
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