Vista the Good the Bad and the Ugly
Microsoft is launching Vista officially tomorrow in Ireland and it happens that I finally upgraded my personal PC this Sunday. Well it was a big upgrade, hardware and software. I replaced my 3 years old main board by a brand new Gigabyte one with an Athlon 5000 64 bit.
So obviously Vista was the right choice for this new shiny box. I also installed the OS on a new 500Gb SATA drive, because I prefer usually of possible a clean install rather than an upgrade.
My overall experience is positive and I really like Vista, but read below my comments on the bad, good and ugly things Microsoft has released.
The Good:
I start by a positive note on the installation process. This is a really improvement on everything done by Microsoft before. Except one minor fright I got with the hard drive (it was npt recognized at the first try), everything is straightforward, almost just one click is enough.
Strangely that from one DVD the system choose by itself what version of Vista I could install. Maybe this is something specific to the MSDN version, I don't know but I had at the end (and quite quickly) a functional Vista Ultimate version. Even the network was working perfectly well.
All the promised things like a faster desktop, some cool effects were there. So my advice will be to get a fast processor and an excellent graphics card (mine is GeForce 7950 GT) to get the maximum Vista experience. Add also a big display like a 22" screen.
The system respond fast and smoothly. And I didn't have any drivers issues.
However like a new install of any Windows system, time will tell is the performances degrade or not, XP is well known for this problem!
A new system to rate your PC by a ratio is a good thing and hopefully for games, we will fnd in the near future these numbers as a recommended level. With my brand new system I got 5.1, which is ranked as the top class system. Thanks, at least I didn't spend this money for nothing!
I like the new sidebar and the gadgets. I am also a Mac user, and I found their widgets quite useless because they are not really working side by side with your desktop, it's more like an on off situation. On Vista, no problem they are sitting where you like it, on left or right, and you can write a note in Word, and use the calculator if you need too. I noticed also no heavy memory resources are used to keep them working, like their counterparts in Windows XP.
Internet Explorer 7 is obviously installed by default, but because I am a web developer, I also installed Firefox 2, and I was quite surprise to not that Firefox was much more responsive than IE, something I never noticed in XP.
The Bad:
Aero is certainly a cool thing and it's beautiful surely, but a nasty thing happens that Microsoft don't explain clearly in their marketing campaign. If you run Vista on a 64 bit version (I don't know for the 32 bit version), and if you are running a 32 bit application (about 99% of them!), Vista will disable automatically the glass effects, buit not only for the incriminated software but for all the other windows until you close it! They call it back to Aero Basic, I call it cheat. I put it as bad because selling Aero as a top notch graphic UI experience is not really what you get at the end.
Now regarding the system organization, it's really a mess. The Folder view options are not where they supposed to be (they are in the Control Panel), and by default each folder come with ugly huge icons. You have to spend quite some time to find anything familiar. Even the network icon in the system tray doesn’t give you a properties window with a right click. A lot of important links are now contextual, drowned in pages that look like help. See the network properties and believe me it take a while to find the settings.
I added to my system IIS and all the Web stuff to check what they have done, and no surprise it's IIS 6 but Microsoft has totally changed the interface, probably to be ready for the next version 7, so at the end it's no that easy to find the settings I used to have on other OS..
The Ugly:
One thing I had to disable very quickly is the new UI for the Start menu. What an awful mess, with all the programs in one big collapse. expanse kind of thing, a column for the Microsoft tools, and not a simple way to change the radical new look.
So after a day of painful experience, I switch back to the classic view. What a shame!
The guys behind the development of the new start bar should be sacked, seriously. This system is worst than in XP, and I wonder what will happen with 50 or 60 applications sitting there.
I said earlier that I had no problems with the drivers, well except for a web cam! So maybe for some, this will be an ugly thing if you install Vista with some peripherals (I heard about printer issues).
IDE! Who don't have IDE disks in their PCs. Well I have two of them, and the new power system let you put to 'light' sleep your drives, so that a simple keystroke will bring back to life all you applications. Sadly this bring you back a beautiful BSOD if you have like me an old slow hard drive.
Well sorry Microsoft but as a beta tester I reported a bug on this few months ago and it's still there exactly as I tested. For my personal fun, I can get the blue screen every time I want, but because I have a life, I disabled this new feature.
So at the moment it's too early to see how Vista will compare with XP, and I believe at least I need to review this post in a year to see how things have evolved. But don't be afraid to try if you can because it's after all not that bad.