Testin’ la Vista loca!
My download of the Windows Vista Beta 1 installation image (2.4GB) finally finished after roughly 2 weeks of downloading on my 2400 baud modem.
Why are you looking at me like that? Okay, I’m kidding about the modem but not about the 2 weeks. I have a 64kbps connection, so that’s why it takes so long. And if you’re wondering why I have such a slow connection, it is very expensive where I live. It’s comparable to Argentina, although they have a slightly better situation there which is improving. Believe me or not, I’m paying 120 US dollars for my connection, monthly.
But ok, enough of that. It’s depressing. About Vista: I installed Windows Vista Beta 1 on a VMWare machine on my laptop, and on my main computer at home. I was hoping I could run it as my main OS from now on on my home computer, but there are some problems that make that I can’t do that. The network setup wizard doesn’t want to work, and I can’t setup Internet Connection Sharing. On top of that Vista doesn’t detect my wireless network card properly. So obviously I can’t use it as my main OS when the networking features in Vista are pretty much screwed in various ways. Which is sad.
But all of that can be expected from the beta. Aero Glass worked as soon as Vista booted into the desktop, so that was a surprise. I thought I’d probably have to update drivers, but that was not needed. There are other issues as well, but overall it’s very usable for a beta 1 release. I’m hoping there will be another interim release soon which enables the networking features I need so that I can really use it as my main OS.
So far there’s nothing really special about Vista in my opinion. It looks like Windows XP with some new features built-in, like searching capabilities and a new user interface. Most of the work seems to have been done in technology working behind the scenes. Mostly things that will make error reporting much better and will improve the stability and security of the OS. I’m still seeing those same old applications and games, some with a horribly outdated UI, from Windows 9x and XP in Vista beta 1. Allchin has said they would be looking at updating some of those applications, but it remains to be seen if this will happen. The whole Aero Glass experience is pointless when you start one of those old applications which still contains the horribly outdated UI and graphics. The system tools UI, mostly the management console UI looks horrible as well, stuff like Windows Event Viewer, Computer Management etc. Lord knows when Microsoft is finally going to update those.
So apart from technology on the back-end that has been improved and updated a little, the only changes on the surface seem to be the UI and the search features. It takes some time to get used to the new layout of the UI and the new icons. I’m now waiting for Beta 2 to see what is going to be really exciting about Vista. Right now it seems that it will certainly be an improvement compared to Windows XP, but it won’t be something revolutionary.
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