20 Things You Won't Like About Vista 771
feminazi writes "Computerworld's Scot Finnie details 20 things you won't like in Windows Vista, with a visual tour to prove it. He says that MS has favored security over end-user productivity, making the user feel like a rat caught in a maze with all the protect-you-from-yourself password-entry and 'Continue' boxes required by the User Account Controls feature." From the article: "In its supreme state of being, Microsoft knows precisely what's best for you. It knows that because its well-implemented new Sleep mode uses very little electricity and also takes only two or three seconds to either shut down or restart, you want to use this mode to 'turn off' your computer, whether you realize it or not. It wants to teach you about what's best. It wants to make it harder for you to make a mistake."
You could wade through ~14 pages... (Score:5, Informative)
Bla bla Apple bla bla
Vista will be the first expensive Microsoft product in history
He hates the Regular/Diet/New/Classic thing
title == body
Menu usability issue
Driver issues
People haven't written enough 'Gadgets' yet
New error reporting system feels very one-way
title == body
A menu has moved
A menu has moved
Bad network menu usability
A menu has moved
Peer to peer networking is still iffy
A menu has moved
title == body
Five words: He doesn't like Secure Desktop
Another 'Proceed' button to click
UI gripes
Hardware requirements are high.
(Welcome to the world of tomorrow! [linuxvirus.net])
Human Readable Version (Score:5, Informative)
Better Link (Score:5, Informative)
Doesn't Microsoft already do this? (Score:5, Informative)
- When selecting, automatically select entire word
- Show full menus after a short delay
- Copy and Paste of subtotals copies and pastes all the data, unless you paste to Notepad and then back to Excel, that makes sense.
- "Cutting" in Excel is totally broken anyway--it doesn't cut a damn thing--you WANT to leave that data there until you paste it elsewhere. You do, really.
- Spontaneous hyperlinking! THANKS!
They've always seemed waaaaaay to interested in the minutiae of my interactions with their software. Makes me crazy.Re:You are not a Windows user. (Score:5, Informative)
So...anything 99% of my users at work won't be doing on a normal basis is protected by the popup boxes you so loathe. In fact, from your quote here, in a normal work day all but one of my users will never see or use any of the items on that list. Yet your claim is that the boxes are so ubiquitous they interfered with the normal operation of the computer. I think no.
I haven't tried the beta yet, but a lot of people seem to mention this. From what I've read, it does not sound unreasonable, but at the same time the UI does sound like it was written by the usual idiots. "Continue" buttons?!? Gee, what a great way to condition your users to not read yet another series of pop-ups. Did all their UI designers get their degree through the mail or something?
The peer networking at my office is not balky. It works flawlessly and seamlessly. I've established that you're not a Windows user.
I take exception to this. Windows desktop to desktop networking is balky, especially on Win2K or in environments that mix Win2K and Windows XP. In an office of 100 machines, in multiple workplaces I've found it is normal to see a random subset of the machines actually on the network at a given time. I remember having to transfer a file to someone's shared directory and asking the people nearby, "who can see Bob's desktop?" and then getting them to transfer the file to him.
Re:You are not a Windows user. (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Two Things You Won't Like About the Article (Score:4, Informative)
Not really, no. I remember using Gopher and Usenet, then shortly afterwards using a Web full of hit-count whores. I must have blinked during this other era you are describing.
Mirrordot link (Score:2, Informative)
Damned if you do, damned if you don't (Score:4, Informative)
*XP SP2 security is still swiss cheese, but it's better than the soap bubbles you get with XP SP1.
Re:You are not a Windows user. (Score:3, Informative)
I suspect some of your users might occasionally want to delete [flickr.com] an icon from the desktop.
The curse of backwards compatibility (Score:2, Informative)
People want security, graphics, games, and a new programming model, but they hate having to rewrite software to actually use the features they've finally received.
This tells us an important lesson that the *nix world has known forever: Make it good in the first place.
Re:Slashdot through the looking glass? (Score:4, Informative)
My Acer laptop running WinXP has Stand By (draining the battery a little) and Hibernate (no drain) and both work like a charm. No problems whatsoever. Restarts are few and far in-between. Does this make my laptop unique?
Re:Slashdot through the looking glass? (Score:3, Informative)
Try messing around there and see if you solve the problem.
Re:What DRM? (Score:3, Informative)
Schneier on User Account Controls (Score:5, Informative)
Critique of Windows Vista doesn't matter (+mirror) (Score:2, Informative)
1) Its going to be the de-facto OS that goes into retail desktops and laptops. So, you wont have a choice (yes there are those Linux laptops available, but I know they dont have a fan following). Microsoft has the monopoly here, remember?
2) People are (more often than not) n00bs [wikipedia.org]. They'll use whatever is offered to them over the plate - whether its Internet Explorer 7 or Windows Media Player 11. There are tons of better alternates available, but most stick with defaults.
Proof of this fact is right here on Slashdot. It seems that everyone is a n00b these days!
Slashdotter [mozilla.org], a Firefox extention, automatically adds CoralCache, Google Cache and/or Mirrordot links directly into any story posted on Slashdot. It has some amazing other features too. I'm surprised that people are desperately seeking mirror links as sites get
(If all that is jargon: click here for the mirror [nyud.net]
Re:Slashdot through the looking glass? (Score:3, Informative)
I dont care about a new 3D GUI, its an O/S for christs sake, but anything that reduces power consumption is most welcome.
Re:Here are at least 4 or 5... (Score:1, Informative)
Re:Slashdot through the looking glass? (Score:5, Informative)
Jan. 25, 2005
Boyd Waters
I plugged the power brick of my Mac Mini into a simple integrating power meter. Here is what I measured:
Off 0-2 Watts
Booting 30-40 Watts
Idle 25 Watts
Sleep 3-5 Watts, almost always 3 Watts
The power brick is rated at 85 Watts output. I have yet to measure power consumption during a compute-intensive task such as DVD playback.
I think the 40 Watt max was during hard disk and DVD spin-up at boot time. Idle means that the disk is spinning, booted, logged in, at the Finder with no user input.
I have a rather complex array of stuff plugged into the Mini via USB; there are two switches and at least one USB cable with in-line LED indicators, a wireless receiver for keyboard and mouse (Gyration, recommended, works fine with Mac or PC).
Of course this power reading does not include the monitor or the external FireWire disk.
I note that this power consumption level compares favorably with my 15-inch aluminum PowerBook, which has approximately the same specifications as the Mac Mini (but cost 3 times as much). The 15 PowerBook draws about 25 Watts nominally, about twice that under heavy compute load or charging the battery while running (as opposed to charging the battery during sleep).
Further note that the power brick and monitor are plugged into an APC uninterruptible power supply (a power strip with a battery back-up); I have yet to measure the difference in power consumption at the UPS wall outlet, but with the Mini asleep at 3 Watts, it's possible that the Mini makes no measurable difference in power consumption at the wall outlet.
Re:One Word: Thunderstorm (Score:3, Informative)
Never underestimate the power in a lightning strike to travel.
Re:Doesn't Microsoft already do this? (Score:1, Informative)
Re:Slashdot through the looking glass? (Score:5, Informative)
We have 45 salespeople with laptops who put their Windows laptops to sleep all the time without problems, but that's only because they shut down or restart once a week to avoid freezes, etc.
We have about 4-5 Mac laptops over the last 6 years that are always left in sleep mode, and I'm talking continuous sleep mode for up to a year at a time. We've never had a problem with Mac laptops going into or coming out of sleep mode.
Of all the salespeople we have with Windows laptops, many, many of them tell me how they close the lid of their laptop to put it to sleep, put it in their briefcase, then go to a customer or home (at the end of the day), and when they get to their destination, their briefcase is 150 degrees F because their laptop didn't actually go to sleep. And, either this causes a freeze-up, automatic shutdown because the laptop couldn't stay running with the screen on for more than 45 minutes, or it generally concerns me and them that the screen or hard disk could get screwed up. That hasn't with the Mac laptops in about 7+ years.
If you've never had problems like I'm describing, then you are very lucky or just have a new laptop (less than 6 months old). I'm telling you, however, that most people who use Windows laptops do have these problems and just live with them.
[rant]
If you don't think that Windows drivers can get corrupted on desktops, laptops, and servers for no real reason, causing bluescreens and general hard crashes, you haven't used Windows for very long. Why else would people like me have to reinstall drivers on Windows computers/servers even though the computer is never shut down or rebooted?
What's amazing with Windows is how you can use 3 apps on a Windows machine for 6 months, and have problems like these even though you never change anything after you initially set it up. I have a Windows desktop at home that I use to browse the web and play 3-4 different games, all of which were installed from the beginning. Everything else I do on our Mac laptops and computers. So, I use that desktop 2-3 times a week, maybe 10 hours a week. It should work the same way on day 180 that it worked on day 1, right?
Wrong.
Nothing has changed except installing high priority Windows patches (which you can't avoid) -- nothing else has been installed, and the games were patched only on day 1. But, boot and login times are slow, and I'm having video choppiness in some, but not all the games.
And, I'm not some idiot who doesn't have antivirus installed from day 1, or who would install miscellaneous crap without knowing it. Everything is the same, but Windows just *degrades* over time from continuous unchanging use. It shouldn't, but it does. So, even with a computer like that, I know I'm going to be reinstalling Windows a year after day 1. That's better than the 3-6 months I get with other Windows computers that are heavily used and changed, but still, why does Windows just fall apart while other OS's don't?
And, don't tell me it's because we install so much more crap in Windows than on other machines because we can. I've had Windows servers that are set up, locked down from day one, don't change, run 24x7, and then their video or ethernet drivers get corrupted causing a bluescreen that won't go away until I reinstall the drivers.
[/rant]
Sorry about that, but a lot of us on Slashdot have a lot (and I do mean a lot) of experience with the Windows frustrations that some people think are myths...
Re:Slashdot through the looking glass? (Score:4, Informative)
At any rate in regards to the GP there are several potential pitfalls for the "Standby" state in for the average Windows user on a PC.
The biggest potential pitfall is that the PC may not have ACPI enabled in the BIOS on the computer. This problem is impossible to fix without a complete reinstall of Windows XP on a computer with ACPI disabled. Fortunately it is impossible to turn off ACPI support in the BIOS of most computers from within the last two to three years.
Another pitfall is the sleep state that the computer is set to in the BIOS. In the BIOS, the Standby state should be set to S3 or Auto and not S1. By default in the BIOS many of the motherboards I have used for home-built computers have had their Standby state set to S1. Standby in S1 mode keeps the PSU, the CPU and the fans running which is pretty pointless. Standby in S3 mode is better at it actually turns the computer off.
Another potential pitfall with respect to Standby is generally hardware problems. The most common problem is an older computer with a broken BIOS. Also some hardware drivers that are usually older do not support Standby. Another problem is that there are some older Seagate SATA drives with broken firmware that do not to turn back from Standby after being turned off in S3 mode. A less common problem that occurs more often with workstations and poorly designed laptops is that there may be too many RAM chips and too much power draw for the PSU or the battery to power them.
Another problem usually with a fresh install of Windows is that the standard video driver in Windows totally lacks support for any Standby or Hibernation mode. In any case install all of your hardware drivers and see if Standby works then.
Re:10 things you wont like about Vista (Score:3, Informative)
"Moran": Misspelling of moron, referring to a well-known picture of a redneck holding two signs saying "Get a brain! Morans" and "Go USA", in response to anti-war activists protesting the US invasion of Iraq. The image was originally taken at a Boeing plant in Saint Charles, Missouri (a suburb of St. Louis), shortly after the war began in March 2003, and was originally posted on the web site of the St. Louis Independent Media Center. (The original article and images have apparently since been archived.) A Google image search for "morans" is a useful way to find the picture.
Re:I use Beta 2... and the alerts aren' t that bad (Score:5, Informative)
The 'prompt' consists of:
'Rundll32 wants to run a privileged operation. OK?'
The 'help' consists of:
'c:\windows\system32\rundl32.exe Shell32.dll,Control_RunDll appwiz.cpl'
Sorry, that isn't informing users at all.
Plus it comes up *constantly* - it's the most annoying feature I've ever seen in an OS - and that's coming from someone who's used OS/400..
MODS: not informative, but FUNNY (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Slashdot through the looking glass? (Score:4, Informative)
Just a nitpick: it actually asks for any administrator's password, so if your own account has administrator privileges, that'd be your own password. Actually, it asks for both the username and password, with the username already filled in if you are logged on as an administrator; you can enter the username and password of any administrator account.
It doesn't ask for the root password, because (by default) there isn't one (and setting one isn't obvious). This means you don't have two different passwords to keep track of, just yours.
Re:You are not a Windows user. (Score:2, Informative)
I recently worked for a campus in Indiana where I was in charge of 8 computer labs. We found that Windows XP's (and possibly other versions) Master Browser service is totally hosed. Totally. Especially if machines are on separate subnets (although this is minimized if you use a Windows based PDC).
They thought I was crazy when I came up with the solution, but we went from machines hardly ever seeing each other, to always working.
The solution is to go to every single Windows XP client and disable the Master Browser service. Then get an old cranky machine out of a closet (we used 90mhz Pentium Pros) and install some version of linux or BSD that will install with the amount of RAM you have. You will need one machine per subnet. Set them all up with Samba and tell them to be Master Browsers (but not domain masters). Point them all to the PDC, or if there isn't one, make one a PDC.
You must have a PDC for Windows networking across subnets. Some people have occasional luck without, occasional being the key word.
The only time we had trouble, was when someone would get into a network closet (someone that shouldn't have, but that is a long story), and physically unplugged the power to a Samba machine to plug in some random idiotic device for 10 minutes, then forgot to plug the Samba machine back in.
I'm no linux zealot, far from it, but I do use linux. And trust me, with XP if you want windows networking to work, you need a non-windows machine to do Master Browsing.
20 Things I Didn't Like About This Article (Score:2, Informative)
2. "With Beta 2 running on multiple test units, I feel comfortable predicting that Windows Vista will not outpace Mac OS X Tiger for overall quality and usability." Have you ever tried to be truly productive with Mac OS X compared to well-configured on Linux? I have tried and failed. I am greatly uncomfortable with window-specific menu functions residing in a session-wide screen fixture instead of windows themselves, cannot tell the difference between launchers and running applications when looking at the dock, and generally find it excruciatingly painful to perform tasks that are, on other systems, second nature to me.
3. "I see Linux and Windows 2000 as being roughly tied another notch or two below Vista, with XP being only a half step better than Win 2000." Your article is concerned mostly with GUI changes. Do you realise how many window managers, GUI toolkits, and "desktop environments" are available on Linux? Also, do you know that modern Linux (and/or generic UNIX) applications and environments can replicate, after a fashion, all of Vista's big graphical and usability improvements? However, I must admit that some of the software I'm referring to is itself beta at best.
4. "It's also intent on raising the bar to 64-bit architecture, driving the need for advanced video hardware and dual-core motherboards and pushing the RAM standard to 2GB -- all to help spur hardware and software sales over the next several years." Well, seen from a purely capitalist point of view, you got the motivation right. From a developer's point of view, you missed the fact that they don't seem the slightest bit interested in reducing bloat - yet point out elsewhere how smooth Mac OS X's visual effects are on less powerful hardware. "Although the cool video features in Vista Aero are nice, Apple was able to provide a lot of the same functionality working with my Power PC-based Mac Mini M9687LL/A, which has only 32MB of video RAM."
5. "With notebooks becoming the primary form factor in many companies and homes, the artificially short half-lives of these computers need to be lengthened." Half-lives? Laptop computers (sorry, I point-blank refuse to call them "notebooks") are radioactive, are they? I also despise the phrase "form factor", although I can't fault you specifically more than I can fault anyone else who uses this horrible phrase.
6. "more main-system RAM hungry". Here's a tip: don't invent long-winded, annoying-sounding phrases just because you think they sound more 'technical' than existing ones ('memory hungry'). Is that "main-system" as opposed to additional-system RAM? Perhaps it can dynamically borrow RAM from other systems one has lying around?
7. "Windows NT, 2000 and XP have always had log-in-based system privileges, but they're cumbmersome." On the Web, nobody can hear you proof-read.
8. "Given that both Linux and the Mac require users to authenticate
9. "Vista requires you to create an administrator-class account name as part of installation or first boot, eliminating a major vulnerability. That means, by default, no one is running with the Administrator log-in." When I installed Windows 2000, it asked me to enter a password for the administrator account - sounds like creating an administrator-class account to me. Plus it isn't obvious from the quote, or its context, exactly how this prevents people using the Administrator account. Stop and think: remember that your subject matter is an unreleased operating system, and that Joe Public is at present likely to be entirely unaware that "administrator-class" and "Administrator" refer to two different concepts; then, bearing that fact in mind, read the sentences back to yourself. You will find th