Hi Dave
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:
Windows Vista Ultimate
Windows Vista Business
Windows Vista Home Basic
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
CNET Vista Readiness 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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