Patrick's Soapbox

It's been out for a while now, but I thought it was about time I threw in some comments about Microsoft Windows Vista. Beta 1, at least.

If you've known me for anything longer than half a minute, or at least spoken with me about technology in the last couple of years, you'd know I'm a "Mac user". Some might even label me a fan boy (though I'm not fond of the term). It's taken me nearly two years to get to a point where Windows is irrelevant to me. I still have a Windows Server 2003 server, but all it does is file serving. So, I said to myself, I'll not buy nor bother to acquire otherwise Longhorn/Vista/Windows next edition when it's released. Somehow, however, when talk of the beta cropped up at work I got excited about the chance to se the new OS.

Oh boy. It's bad to get excited sometimes. My reaction to Vista Beta 1 could only be described as under-whelming. It looks like they've taken XP, said "lets throw out the good UI decisions, make it black, and serve it to unexpected developers!".

So, we'll start with the basics. You have a task bar, although it's black now (and looks nice and shiny, points for that). You have a start menu that has two columns with even more options packed into. The "All Programs" is no longer a popup menu, it puts itself in place of the frequently used app icons. Is that a good thing? Maybe.

Next, logical thing, "My Documents". Except that's now "Documents". Clicking on it doesn't open My Documents. It opens a "Virtual Folder" showing all documents. Interesting idea, but damn it, why?

Explorer. Oh dear $deity. The menu bar is no longer at the top of the window, like it is in every other Windows application. Why? What good reason is there?

The two "folder" panes, that don't seem to notice what you do in the other. Bug? Serious UI idiocy? Yes. The general lack of anything seperating the areas in Explorer windows? Makes it a nightmare to use. At least you can still get a classic view in Control Panel.

There are some cool features (the presentation tools for sharing the desktop), but over all, there is nothing in Vista Beta 1 that convinces me that Windows has a place in my future. Every time I use the beta box at work I go running back to my desk where there is an iMac and an Ubuntu box, which look better, and perform every function I need ever day.

I offer no guarantee that the above makes sense, or that it's impartial: it probably doesn't, and it certainly isn't.