Wow.
While I thought Beta 2 was a large step backwards, I think the July CTP is a gigantic leap forwards. This OS is certainly well on its way to being prime time. I've been using it for about half a day now, and I've only reported two issues (one of which is annoying and I can imagine it being fixed, the other is most likely a bug with Trillian), neither of which are terrible.
So I've decided that I'm going to try to make the switch. I've moved most of my dev stuff over to the Vista partition and I'm going to give it a heavy stress test by using it daily and see what crops up.
The first thing that I noticed is the amount of visual polish that's in this release. Not only is the OS more snappy than previous ones, the eye candy is finally functional. There are some major new things which I've never noticed before, probably because I've never really been able to use the OS to this extent.
For instance, when you mouse over items on the task bar, you're presented with a mini shot of that item, sort of like a tool tip on steroids. Hitting Windows+Tab (instead of Alt+Tab) brings you into an Expose-like window switcher, which is a useful extension. The main reason I've hated Expose on the Mac is because it requires knowing an archaic F-key and I can never remember which one does what and when. The nice thing about Windows+Tab is that it's an easy and sensible extension of Alt+Tab and Ctrl+Tab, which already do this same functionality. That being said, Alt+Tab was also given an overhaul into showing the application snapshots as well, so the Windows+Tab thing is just eye candy in a different presentation.
I can finally see the glass look on my desktop since my machine can actually handle it (yay for getting a new video card), and it looks pretty spiffy. I don't require it, but it doesn't bother me either.
Most of the control UI hasn't changed that much compared to previous versions. However, there's a new progress wheel indicator which has made an appearance in this release which I tend to like. However, some UI has come and gone, so we'll see if this makes it into the fc's or not.
I've had no application breakage for any apps. Everything I use works like a charm, which is always nice to have happen when updating the OS. Especially when it's a major upgrade like XP to Vista, instead of a minor upgrade, like 10.3 to 10.4.
Just so I don't sound like a gushing fanboy, there is one thing which annoyed me until I figured out how to solve it. Windows explorer denies you access (by default) to certain folders which I don't think it should deny you access to. For instance, the Documents and Settings folder for your user. Those are my files (otherwise, why are they under my username) and why should I be blocked from getting access to them? The solution was to grant myself access, but that seems silly since they are my own files, after all.
So that's my take on Vista's July CTP. Anyone else using it and have something to add?
Set Exposé to trigger when the third mouse button is clicked. Then you can just click the scroll wheel to see all your windows.
Have they fixed the problem with too many "authentication" dialogs coming up? It used to be that it would take up to 3 dialogs for many common admin tasks, vs. one on OS X. That annoyed me.
Interesting factoid about Expose, thanks!
As for the authentication dialogs, that's been fixed for a while now. However, I still don't think the design is entirely correct. I find that they come up too often, and so I tend to go into auto-pilot mode when they appear and just click Continue. That's a bad design! I should only see these things when it's really important, and I should have to think about it a bit more than just hitting Continue. While the current approach is easy, it's not terribly secure. It's more of an annoyance which has only minor benefits. For instance, this should solve the issue of apps installing themselves without you knowing it since it pops up the dialog. However, since your brain gets fairly well attuned to just hitting Continue.... who knows.
I can second the tip for the third mouse button... that's what I do too. However I have to disable that when I use one of my 3d apps, the third button is the rotate around center axis... but aside from that, it's really handy. :)
It wouldn't work to map that on Windows; the wheel click is usually mapped to a double click. I use that neat trick all the time, so if I started popping up a window selector when I was thinking it would open up a file on the desktop, that'd get old in a hurry. ;-)
Exposé has three different behaviors, so how it could use something "sensible" like Option-Tab or Control-Tab or whatever just doesn't make sense. I set mine to corners which makes exposing the desktop / other windows, grabbing a file or item, exposing again, and dropping the item in a different application extremely fast.
If they've cleaned up the UI, have they changed the ridiculous translucent windows?
Ah, see, on Windows, there's been the various features of Expose for a number of years, with the "see the contents of the window" view. And all of them have had a Windows+SomeKey shortcut. Windows+D shows the desktop, and then doing it again restores the desktop. Etc. I tried the corners thing, but it always tripped me up. I never figured out how to keep my desktop snapping to a grid but not enforcing a stupid rule about ordering (like alphabetical). So I'd go for a file, overshoot, hit the corner and BAM! Hated it. Expose was one of the first things I turned off, and Dashboard was the second. I also turned that dashboard crap off on Vista too; hate the idea.
Sounds like someone has window manager jealousy. ;-) The translucent window borders are still there. I'm shocked that a lover of OS X wouldn't be all over the useless eye candy that translucent windows provide. It seems so... Mac-like. ;-)
Will you post screencaps? :)
Just curious, but what graphics card you got?
Oh, no no no. :-)
We Mac OS X users don't have window manager jealousy; we just know our system is superior.
After all, Mac OS X has already *had* translucent title bars for five years. We found they didn't work well and so Apple removed them recently. You see, "eye candy" isn't about useless appearance, but useful data. Translucent window edges everywhere provides very little data. But hey, if Windows wants to stumble into Apple's old mistakes, that's fine with me. ;-)
All arguing aside, I definitely think Vista is a big step up from XP. At least the default theme is now respectable (if straight out of Apple's playbook). And the underlying system does seem to have big changes; I just wish the interface would subscribe to KISS instead of Microsoft's silly new task-based interface ideas.
@Aaron: Errr... snap to grid without ordering just means you have to uncheck a simple checkbox. It's been that way for decades. :)
http://www.freaksw.com/temp/ViewOptions.png
Regarding the windows, I'm sure no Mac user would love this, and you certainly wouldn't see Apple make it: http://www.cdrinfo.com/Sections/Articles/Sources/Windows%20Vista%20Beta%201%20Review/Images/transparency.png I'm fine with them adding candy -- candy is good -- but don't do it where it's just butt ugly and distracting. :\ I really thought they would have refined it.
@Adam: I agree about the interface organization. I setup XP on my mini for some things, and I was trying to change some settings, and heck if I could find them. I wanted to change it to use DHCP and I had to guess whether I was supposed to pick "office workgroup, office network, home office network, dial up, or broadband"....... WTH?? Windows is trying to be far too helpful in a lot of areas and instead makes it confusing.
@Seth -- That doesn't do what I want it to though (and it is a horrible UI gaffe, I might add). I want it to keep things in alphabetical order when making new items, but if I move something manually, I want it to stay where I put it. But since that doesn't work, I live within the constraints of the system. The UI gaffe, btw, is that snap to grid a checkbox as is keep arranged by, but it behaves as a radio button. Terrible.
I don't find it distracting in the least bit, but I also don't find it helps me either. I can live with or without it, to be honest. At least Microsoft understands that there are people with disabilities and tailors their standard window widgets accordingly.
@Scott -- I'll try to post some screen shots when I have the chance. As for what video card I have, I'm pretty sure it's a GeForce 6600 GT. At least, that's what the device manager reports to me, and sounds about right.
"At least Microsoft understands that there are people with disabilities and tailors their standard window widgets accordingly."
Care to elaborate? I'm interested.
I'm about to head out, but I'll post pictures later that should be easy enough to understand. Heck, might even make a post out of it since it's an educational issue, though I dare say people will just assume I'm bashing on the Mac since that happens to be my example.
@Aaron: Not being able see the icon, read text, or clearly see the buttons doesn't bug you? Sheesh. You need to learn to be pickier, like us. :^)
Regarding icons - I totally misread what you meant. I see what you mean.
With Adam, I don't know what you mean by MS understanding disabilities.
@Seth -- I actually prefer the blurring effect because it's a visual cue. It means "that other stuff doesn't belong to this app" so my brain doesn't have to grok that visual information. However, there's enough information there to give me clues about what's back there in the rare case I need to care. So it's not as distracting as having crystal-clear items which appear to be part of the window frame but don't actually belong to the window. The only things I need to care about are the crystal clear ones, which is nice in some regards.
But as I said, I can live without it too. I don't think it's the greatest thing since sliced bread by any means.
[...] « Vista July CTP Impressions [...]
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Factoid
@Aaron: Is it PCI Express (WTH is PCI-Express anyways, and why does it seem to be better than AGP?) and do you know how much RAM the card's got?
And does it work pretty smoothly for you? Or can you tell your machine is working hard to make the eye-candy?
@Scott -- The the machine isn't working hard at all, so everything is going smoothly. It's PCI Express (and all I know is that it's better than AGP -- no clue how or why), and it has 512 MB of video memory, I believe.
Mmmm.... sweeeeet :)
Would be a godly World of Warcraft machine :) hehe
Just did a quick read on AGP and PCIe Wikipedia. Looks like PCIe is significantly faster than AGP and a OS designed for PCI will run on PCIe with no changes (PCIe is supposed to be transparent to the developer from PCI vs AGP).
Looks like AGP is starting to die off.
[...] So a few days ago, I posted my first impressions of the new Vista July CTP, and now that I’ve been using it as my main desktop for the last while, I’d like to talk about my experience. [...]