Initially I had a ton of problems with drivers – specifically my sound drivers causing my system to hang and crash. Creative Labs, who makes my old sound card – a Sound Blaster Audigy 2, just came out with a driver last week. Too bad I’ve already tossed the card in the trash can. It took them 5 months to get their drivers out. That being said, Intel and ATI (Now AMD) both had drivers out, as did Realtek, day 1 that worked flawlessly.
So hardware is good. So far every game I’ve thrown at the system works great too. So far I’ve played Quake 4, Fear, Civilizations IV, and Never Winter Nights 2. Sound, video – it’s all good.
Programming on the other hand is not so good. Windows Vista shipped with a new version of IIS – IIS 7. With IIS 5.1 (Windows XP) I never had a problem running PHP or ASP applications. With IIS 7 both were problematic and took a lot of research to fix issues, and ultimately I removed IIS all together and installed XAMPP instead. Seems "Enable this feature" isn't enough to get it to work on Vista.
Next problem is Windows Explorer, gone is the good old days when explorer would remember how it was setup. Now Windows Explorer thinks every directory I have is full of photos just because there is 1 JPG out of 100 Word Docs. I am serious, each time I look at my documents (renamed to just Documents) I get a random view of the directory. When I click to view the details, I always get the columns Name, Date Taken, Tags, Size and Rating. I have to manually go in, each time, and add Date Modified and File Type. This is a huge waste of my time. Every time I look at a web project I have to do this.
What about if I delete a folder, then try to make a new folder with the same name? Error every time! The source and destination file names are the same.
System Crash Handling
Another example is if there is a crash. What does this box do? "Windows has recovered from an unexpected shutdown” When I click "Check for solution" it just closes. How about saying - No solution found? Apparently it got lost looking for my solution.
File Sharing
File sharing, if you use the pre-set shared folder works perfect. However if you are like me and have a music collection or photos on a RAID or other drive, watch out, you are going to need to make a ton of changes to permissions and firewall settings just to get it to work. It took me about 6 hours of messing with it just to get my shares to work correctly.
User Account Control
This in and of itself is great. A great feature pulled straight from the folks in the Linux camp. For me, it is a nagging monkey on my back. If you are a basic Windows user – good for you, use UAC and love it. For me it has been turned off.
Consistency
Next problem I have is the consistency throughout Vista. It doesn’t exist. Some pages are the new style, some are like Windows XP, and some are even like Windows 2000.
For example:
Windows Calendar
While by itself it is an OK application. It is definitely a great addition to the system – especially with the reminders! However I have one big beef with this one. What happened to my SAVE button on the appointments? Windows ALWAYS has a save and close option on each box… but not on Calendar – it’s been removed and replaced with a Mac type functionality where it auto saves. It really doesn’t make me feel like my changes are being retained. I don’t understand how this completely inconsistent functionality made it past beta.
That’s it for problems for me.
Some of the things that are really rocking in Vista include:
Windows Calendar
This is a MUCH needed application in XP. The application is clean and just works. If you’ve used Outlooks calendar it is very similar to that. It will even open up when you set a reminder. Very nice.
Flip 3D
This is another feature barrowed from Linux. Although Microsoft has done a great job implementing this, original it is not. It is a nice update from Alt-Tab of old.
Areo Theme
The new Windows theme is nice and clean. Fonts are clean, sharp and easy to read. Just like if you turn on Clear Type in Windows XP. You can even change the theme to be any color you want.
Things that are just eh…
Windows Media Player 11
Eh. Vista comes with WMP11 – but I have a Zune, so I get to use the bastard child of media players - the Zune software. WMP11 is nothing new from the one on Windows XP.
Windows Mail
This is just a skin update to the crappy Outlook Express. Personally I’ve already moved on to Thunderbird 2.
Window Photo Gallery
This is another just ok application. It is definitely no Picasa (http://picasa.google.com).
Windows Movie Maker
WMM is just a visual update to the application that shipped with XP. Not much new at all.
The wrap up
The bottom line is that Windows Vista is not worth the update. Personally I will continue to use, and will revisit this review after Service Pack 1 in the fall. Windows Vista feels like just a visual update to Windows XP and that is all. Not to dis the engineers who worked their butts off on this project because I know they really worked hard. But the final polish is missing.
Just like most things Microsoft, version 1 of a product is not worth getting. I would wait until Service Pack 1 launches in the fall.
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