Conclusion... for Now
Overall, in order to rate Vista we have two different competitors we need to look at: MacOS X "Tiger" and Windows XP. Although Vista is the same operating system in both cases, how well it performs is all relative to what it is being compared against.
Vista vs. Tiger
If you read our initial Beta 2 preview, then you can stop reading now as Vista has not changed enough to drastically alter our view on this comparison. In short, Mac enthusiasts can breathe a sigh of relief because Vista won't be causing a reverse-switching phenomenon any time soon. Vista is good, good enough that it will stop the hemorrhaging and greatly reduce the number of switchers for the time being. However it's not better than Tiger for Mac users and it isn't going to pull anyone back, so the operating systems are at a stalemate at the moment until Leopard and/or Vista SP1.
In Microsoft's corner, Vista's file-I/O improvements keep it solidly ahead of Tiger. The SuperFetch family of abilities is clearly beyond Tiger, as Tiger's own caching system doesn't have the speed or refinement to match what Vista can do and it makes a remarkable difference. System Restore/Volume Shadow Copy is also well beyond what Tiger can do, and although this is apt to start debates at VSC versus Apple's already-revealed Time Machine technology, only one of them is in a shipping operating system and that's Vista.
In Apple's corner as we've mentioned before is Exposé, which will continue to weigh heavily in the favor of Apple as it's a simple-but-powerful tool to boost productivity. Apple's other strengths here are also related to their UI, as the Finder is still a better organized file browser than Explorer, and they have done a better job enforcing a consistent look and feel across their own applications and even 3rd-party applications.
In the middle then are their respective application suites, in which there is no clear winner. Windows Calendar is the closest single thing we've seen to being an Apple knockoff (it's iCal) while Internet Explorer 7+ is the new benchmark for Safari. Meanwhile iTunes does a much better job as a media player than Windows Media Player, and Windows Mail with phishing protection keeps users safer than Mail.app's security-through-minority nature which doesn't prevent phishing.
Given how long Vista was in development and how long after Tiger it is being released, it's almost a bit sad to see that Microsoft couldn't come up with something that was far above and beyond Tiger. Leopard will undoubtedly change things again, but for now Vista could have surpassed Tiger only if Microsoft had done more sensible things with the UI. Nonetheless Windows users will be happy to have a version of Windows that finally isn't lagging behind MacOS X.
Vista vs. XP
Among those that won't become switchers, Microsoft's own worst enemy is itself, as it needs to prove that Vista is a worthwhile upgrade to XP when XP is already so refined. For many users in the consumer space, Vista is simply a version of Windows where (to borrow a quote from Field of Dreams) "If you build it, they will come." These people will get Vista on their new computers and they'll like it because it is good, but having never had the chance to decide if they didn't want it.
For everyone else who does get a choice, more often than not we believe the choice will be Vista. As we've stated before it's not perfect, but it's quite good. There are some very good reasons not to use it in some cases (system requirements, compatibility, and OpenGL performance), but for those machines that the above do not apply to, there are numerous useful features in Vista that warrant an upgrade if you find that you're the kind of person that will use them. Vista's SuperFetch and Search technology are both reasons enough to migrate from XP, as they easily improve productivity and performance.
Vista is a worthy upgrade and an even better choice as an operating system for a new computer. At the same time there's still ample room to grow; hopefully we'll have even fewer complaints once Service Pack 1 is released later this year. Hopefully Microsoft will spend some time improving features as opposed to simply bug fixing, though, as right now some of the design decisions still need work.
Overall, in order to rate Vista we have two different competitors we need to look at: MacOS X "Tiger" and Windows XP. Although Vista is the same operating system in both cases, how well it performs is all relative to what it is being compared against.
Vista vs. Tiger
If you read our initial Beta 2 preview, then you can stop reading now as Vista has not changed enough to drastically alter our view on this comparison. In short, Mac enthusiasts can breathe a sigh of relief because Vista won't be causing a reverse-switching phenomenon any time soon. Vista is good, good enough that it will stop the hemorrhaging and greatly reduce the number of switchers for the time being. However it's not better than Tiger for Mac users and it isn't going to pull anyone back, so the operating systems are at a stalemate at the moment until Leopard and/or Vista SP1.
In Microsoft's corner, Vista's file-I/O improvements keep it solidly ahead of Tiger. The SuperFetch family of abilities is clearly beyond Tiger, as Tiger's own caching system doesn't have the speed or refinement to match what Vista can do and it makes a remarkable difference. System Restore/Volume Shadow Copy is also well beyond what Tiger can do, and although this is apt to start debates at VSC versus Apple's already-revealed Time Machine technology, only one of them is in a shipping operating system and that's Vista.
In Apple's corner as we've mentioned before is Exposé, which will continue to weigh heavily in the favor of Apple as it's a simple-but-powerful tool to boost productivity. Apple's other strengths here are also related to their UI, as the Finder is still a better organized file browser than Explorer, and they have done a better job enforcing a consistent look and feel across their own applications and even 3rd-party applications.
In the middle then are their respective application suites, in which there is no clear winner. Windows Calendar is the closest single thing we've seen to being an Apple knockoff (it's iCal) while Internet Explorer 7+ is the new benchmark for Safari. Meanwhile iTunes does a much better job as a media player than Windows Media Player, and Windows Mail with phishing protection keeps users safer than Mail.app's security-through-minority nature which doesn't prevent phishing.
Given how long Vista was in development and how long after Tiger it is being released, it's almost a bit sad to see that Microsoft couldn't come up with something that was far above and beyond Tiger. Leopard will undoubtedly change things again, but for now Vista could have surpassed Tiger only if Microsoft had done more sensible things with the UI. Nonetheless Windows users will be happy to have a version of Windows that finally isn't lagging behind MacOS X.
Vista vs. XP
Among those that won't become switchers, Microsoft's own worst enemy is itself, as it needs to prove that Vista is a worthwhile upgrade to XP when XP is already so refined. For many users in the consumer space, Vista is simply a version of Windows where (to borrow a quote from Field of Dreams) "If you build it, they will come." These people will get Vista on their new computers and they'll like it because it is good, but having never had the chance to decide if they didn't want it.
For everyone else who does get a choice, more often than not we believe the choice will be Vista. As we've stated before it's not perfect, but it's quite good. There are some very good reasons not to use it in some cases (system requirements, compatibility, and OpenGL performance), but for those machines that the above do not apply to, there are numerous useful features in Vista that warrant an upgrade if you find that you're the kind of person that will use them. Vista's SuperFetch and Search technology are both reasons enough to migrate from XP, as they easily improve productivity and performance.
Vista is a worthy upgrade and an even better choice as an operating system for a new computer. At the same time there's still ample room to grow; hopefully we'll have even fewer complaints once Service Pack 1 is released later this year. Hopefully Microsoft will spend some time improving features as opposed to simply bug fixing, though, as right now some of the design decisions still need work.
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BPB - Thursday, February 1, 2007 - link
If you want Quick Launch to work that way, just add the icons you want into the Qucik Launch folder. Then unlock your taskbar and drag the bar which allows the display of the Quick Launch icons all the way left. Then lock your taskbar. Now you can just click the arrow that shows in the taskbar and it will display all your Quick Launch icons snd "disappear on the fly". It's not perfect, but it's closer to what you want. No wasted space AND you get your Quick Launch icons.
darklight0tr - Thursday, February 1, 2007 - link
Quick Launch is one on my favorite features in Windows, because it allows you to quickly launch commonly used programs. I just wish Microsoft would have enhanced it with additional functionality. I have to use a 3rd party program to the features I want to Quick Launch.Despite the issues with x64, that's the version I will get when I migrate to Vista. I just wish Microsoft would have been able to release Vista as a x64 only OS. The availability of a 32bit version of Vista will keep the migration to x64 to a crawl.
creathir - Thursday, February 1, 2007 - link
I cannot stand it... it does drive me nuts...Will most users not use it? I highly doubt that. Turning it off is not as easy as "1...2...3... OFF!"
It does involve some tinkering to get it to turn off...
The problem is, this is how things should have been from the beginning, but we have been spoiled by the lack of security. I really do not find that it gets in the way or anything like that.
I'm not sure if I would QUITE go that far... given the vast majority will have NO CLUE on how to turn it off…
Just my thoughts.
- Creathir
Locutus465 - Friday, February 2, 2007 - link
http://vistasupport.mvps.org/turn_off_user_account...">http://vistasupport.mvps.org/turn_off_user_account...One of the many links I found by going to start and typing into the new Windows Search box located there in Vista :)
Search is going to be one of the biggest selling points, works much better in Vista than it did in XP (I've used it in both).
Aikouka - Thursday, February 1, 2007 - link
Jarred's right, it's actually very easy to turn off. Although if you turn it off, Windows will bug you to no end in their protection center to turn it back on (which you can turn that off too :P). I ended up turning it off when trying to install drivers for my Realtek ALC888 codec on my Gigabyte GA-965P-DQ6, because at first, the driver install kept looping and asking if I really wanted to install unsigned drivers. I kept hitting yes, they kept going back and prompting me. After Vista said the driver install failed and asked if I'd like to run it in a higher privileged mode, I did so. Then the install told me that I needed to be <b>ON VISTA</b> to install the drivers. I ended up installing a different set of drivers that I didn't even expect to work with the ALC888-DD.Also, to add in with drivers, UAC caused a weird issue with the 100.54 drivers from nVidia. When UAC prompted you, the screen fades into a B&W gray-ish hue ( kind of like when shutting down XP ), but when you're running DualView on Vista and you hit a button to close the prompt (being it accepting the action or whatever), the other screen literally freaks out. It goes to some weird graphical pattern for a second and then goes back to normal. Although the problem doesn't stay, it's quite noticeable out of the corner of my eye.
JarredWalton - Thursday, February 1, 2007 - link
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=vista+tur...">Easy as 1-2-3, or just http://technet2.microsoft.com/WindowsVista/en/libr...">get it from Microsoft. My feeling is that most people will *want* it off, even if they don't know how to shut it off, and I'll reword that sentence appropriately. :)Jedi2155 - Thursday, February 1, 2007 - link
Is there still Memory Address limitation with the 32-bit version of Vista?Like say, I had a SLI board (eVGA 680i in particular), and I wanted more than 2 GB, would I still hit the 2.25 GB wall due to address bus or does Vista gets around this and is actually able to address the 4 GB if I had that installed? Or is my only option is still go with x64 version of Vista....
JarredWalton - Thursday, February 1, 2007 - link
It depends on motherboard and BIOS as well as the OS. AFAIK, you can't get more than 3.5GB (and often only 3GB) of accessible memory with any 32-bit OS on x86. The top 512MB is reserved. Perhaps it is OS dependent and you can get closer to 4GB, but for MS operating systems I think it's always been 3.5GB max. Whereas in XP you needed to use the /3gb switch for the OS, on Vista you use:BCDEDIT IncreaseUserVA [size]
Or something like that. I don't know if the maximum is any different on 32-bit Vista than 32-bit XP, but I would bet it's the same.
Ryan Smith - Thursday, February 1, 2007 - link
You're almost right. It's possible to get all 4GB(and more) on a 32bit system when using Physical Address Extension. However most consumer level boards don't implement this at the hardware level past what's required to support the NX bit(which also requires PAE), so most people can not get all 4GB in 32bit mode. With XP and Vista, you can get all 4GB as long as PAE is fully supported, however actually using PAE to get 4GB+ brings about some compatibility/performance problems, which is why 64bit addressing is a cleaner solution.The /3gb switch is an entirely different thing, it adjusts the 2/2 split between user processes and the kernel so that user processes can go up to 3GB by taking some memory from the kernel's space(which also can cause problems, oy).
Spoelie - Thursday, February 1, 2007 - link
I haven't read the article yet (am doing so in a minute) but just a thought by having a first look at the article index: I was wondering what impact Aero would have on power consumption. We know that it runs the UI on the graca, so the graca would be in use all the time. Is the load on it high or low? You can collect a lot of data on such a thing (power consumption while idling, moving windows around, ... on vista with aero, without aero, on winxp...)It could be that it gets a mention in the review, it's just not apparant from the index. I'll apologise beforehand if it does.