So I installed Vista on Monday evening, and have been puttering around with it since then. There will probably be dozens of people writing about their Vista experiences, so I figured I would join the fray.
Everyone has different needs when it comes to their computers and operating systems. Some people are dazzled by the look and feel, others are strictly into the back-end services and functions, others care about functionality — what can it do?
And of the latter, there’s a wide range. Some people care about what games come bundled, others want to know how easy it is to get around. And so on.
I’m not that interested in the look of things, although I never used the Windows XP interface because it was ugly, especially that unchangeable green Start button. The Windows “classic” interface begun with Windows 98 was fine.
Still, Vista is pretty and I appreciate that. It’s taskbar is too dark, though, and can’t be changed — at least not through the OS itself, and I haven’t found a tool online. Yet.
For me it’s more about what it can do, and whether it does those things well.
The hardest part about the Vista switch (after five years of using XP) is that things have moved. I’m used to thinking in a particular folder structure, and it’s different enough in Vista that I have to think about where things are.
For example, both XP and Vista have folders for each user’s documents. In XP it’s My Documents; in Vista it’s simply Documents. (In XP the My Documents folder was inside \Documents and Settings\user, while Vista puts it in \Users\user.)
But in XP, the My Music and My Pictures folders — indeed, all the “My” folders — were inside My Documents. In Vista they’re on the same level.
This is, of course, no big deal. But it takes some getting used to.
There are other things that are making work for me.
In XP’s Control Panel, you changed your display settings — all of them — with the Display control. In Vista you “Personalize” it, and that control has a variety of sub-menus.
The big problem so far is that Display starts with “D” and Personalize starts with “P.” The Control Panel icons are alphabetized, so I always look for that control at the top, then remember that it’s been renamed and go searching.
Vista’s control panels are all fancier. They’ve got sidebars with all sorts of suggestions, such as what other controls you want. You can’t turn them off, though, as you could with XP. More things to get used to.
Other Control Panel applets have been renamed, or things have been moved, so there’s more hunting going on. But then you bump into an area where Vista shines: search.
Search is everywhere. Looking through the list of applications but can’t find the one you want? Enter part of its name in the search box and you’ll find it — Vista knows that you’re search for a program, not a document.
Browsing Control Panel and looking to change your password? Enter password in the search box and you’ll find Control Panel applets that have something to do with passwords — Vista knows you’re searching for a control.
It took me a bit to remember to use that robust, ubiquitous search, but I’m getting better at using it.
I’ve already found some bugs, of course. Most notably, Windows Explorer crashes regularly when I few a particular folder that has images and videos in it. No idea why, but it have have to do with a thumbnail problem.
Meanwhile, I’m busy tweaking (using the terrific TweakVI program I found), making everything work the way I like. Gone are the super-smooth animations of text boxes and such; now it’s snappier and less “mushy.” Gone are cluttered sidebars and menus from the various folder boxes. Gone is the annoying desktop Sidebar, which inexplicably covers a huge chunk of real estate even if it’s virtually empty. (I like the clock, so I dragged it off the Sidebar and onto the desktop proper.)
I use Thunderbird for my e-mail, but I was going to give Windows Mail a whirl… but it won’t start. Maybe tonight I’ll see what’s up with that.
In a few days, I’m sure, I’ll have tweaked to my heart’s content and will have everything working the way I like it. And then, like Windows 98 and XP before it, Vista will just fade away into the background.
The Fray
Leland says:
So Andrew, how about verifying a couple of the horror stories that came down from our IT folks…
-> Have you tried ripping a standard music CD to a high quality MP3 yet? If so have you tried using a third party software like Audio Grabber?
-> Has Vista gone through and audited your software for you? Possibly demanding verification of one or more license keys? Or even more fun, has Vista arbitrarily declared one or more pieces of software pirated and, in the spirit of keeping everyone honest, deleted them for you? (Adobe products seem to be really susceptible to this trick.)
Andrew says:
Nope, Gary, it came courtesy of the good folks at Microsoft. It’s not slower, though — because the graphics are handled by the graphic-card hardware, it takes a lot of load off the CPU so I see no change in performance. Granted, I’m not benchmarking, but if it’s slower it’s not noticeable.
Leland, funny you should mention that. I didn’t realize it was a problem. Yes, Photoshop did demand proof that it was legit, as did Office XP. I haven’t tried ripping yet, but now I will. (I use CDex or EAC, so maybe I won’t have the same problem….)
GaryL says:
If typing a paper or working in Office it isn’t noticeably slower. But if you play games it is slower. Games other than solitaire that is.
I use EAC and LAME to rip CDs. It is the best. I’ll stick with XP. No need to buy something that will slow me down or hamper me in any way.
Microsoft gets it right with Windows 7 | Andrew Kantor's Place says:
[...] am no fan of Vista; I’ve written about that before in a few places. I’ve been using it for the past few months because it takes advantage of RAM in [...]
GaryL says:
I am hoping that you didn’t purchase your copy of vista. Currently it is the equivalent of taking a piece of shiny new tin foil and hanging it from your head in front of your eyes. I have yet to see how it is actually better than XP in an way. It is slower, takes much more memory, and is a general system hog. But to be honest we were all saying this when XP came out in 2001.
After a couple of years and a service pack and major hardware upgrades will Vista be even an option that I would consider. But for now, it is just a shiny piece of tin foil not worth a dime.