[Fury]

I hope I am not sounding too much of a corporate shill here, it's just that I am awaiting Vista with extreme curiosity.

Since Beta 2 of the upcoming incarnation of Windows will most likely be released sometime May 23th-25th, I decided to review what information is available so far about Windows Vista. As expected today, all the relevant information was found from Wikipedia, although there are several interesting beta-reviews around the net but which may be a bit outdated by now. I am eagerly awaiting reviews about soon to be released Beta 2.

Even though Vista's development has been one hell of a rocky road, the new OS is beginning to shape up nicely and should be a welcome successor to the aging Windows XP, which is soon 5 years old. 5 years is a long time and it is beginning to show as Windows has been steadily falling behind rapidly advancing Linux and OS X, but it looks like Vista is going to be a serious contender even if we overlook the fact that Windows is favored by OEM manufacturers and thus the most common desktop OS, but this time Windows will also be a serious contender when it comes to features of the OS itself.

Instead of listing and going through each new or improved feature, I'd like to point everyone to read following two Wikipedia articles;
- Windows Vista
- Features new to Windows Vista
Some of the new features are very interesting, of course if you aren't interested in tech stuff like this, it can't be helped.

The less computer savvy people here might be wondering what's the fuss about. To put it into a nutshell, Windows Vista is much bigger upgrade from Windows XP than Windows XP was from Windows 2000. The difference is more comparable to upgrade from Windows 3.1 to Windows 95 or from Windows 98 to Windows 2000. The next question you probably ask is if Windows Vista will even run on your computers, the minimum computer requirements have been set to 800MHz Pentium 3 or Athlon, 512MB RAM and DirectX9 driver-compatible video card, you won't be able to run the new interface with all the bells and whistles but you can use classic Windows 2000/XP style interface.

I don't know about the lot of you, but unless MS screws up really bad, Vista is going to end up replacing XP on all of my computers soon after it is released. Not all of my computers can run the new interface and have to use classic W2k/XP interface instead, but with rest of the features still usable, I don't really care.

[aldo_14]

Yay!  Security holes a plenty, with an all new shiny interface!

[Fury]

Have you looked into Vista's security improvements? It starts with redesigned user account management and usage, new IE that is no longer part of the shell and ends to completely recoded network stack. Since Vista is going to become the next mainstream OS, of course security holes will be found but with the looks of it, Vista's security is laying on solid rock as opposed to W2k/XP. I have quite high hopes that MS really gets security right from the beginning for Vista.

[Prophet]

I am not going to hurry. I'll give them a year to iron out the biggest bugs. Then, depending on what kind of feedback the thing gets, I might upgrade. Thats what I did when XP was sneezed out.
I am not really exited at all. To me it looks like Fury there is jumping around and clapping hands happy-happy-joy-joy. But me, I'll get another beer and watch how Lordi conquers the world.
And it is a Mikceysof product after all. That alone gets it a few minus points. Nothing I can do about it but thats how it works.

Not being a real tech geek, my biggest interest lies in the interface. How much darker and depressing I can make my desktop.

[Fury]

I've been working in a tech support last 4 years and I guess that has made me long for better Windows, Vista is holding promise to be a great OS and that's what makes me excited. A great OS makes my job easier and being a tech geek, the new features are quite interesting. There's always potential for a major screwup from MS's part, but I try not to think too negatively...

[Ford Prefect]

Man, I am so behind it's not even funny. My machine is getting a massive overhaul this weekend, and I'm just about to move from 2000 to XP.

[Ulala]

XP features excluded:

IPX networks are no longer supported.


Will this mean trouble when I want to LAN older games like C&C95 or Red Alert? If so.. 

[CP5670]

What happened to the Mr.?

Anyway, as with all my previous Windows upgrades, I will only switch to Vista once I have a specific reason to do it, like running a program or driver that requires it. Until then, XP is working fine, and I could do without any further memory bloat (see my other thread).

[Col. Fishguts]

Vista seems to be a step in the right direction, but it's basically a more *nix-like Windows with a shiny new interface.

I'll wait and see what's happening with the DRM mess. If it's as bad as it sounds right now, this might be the final push for a Linux-only desktop for me.

[Kosh]

Will it have viruses pre-loaded to save us the trouble of dl'ing them?

I'll wait and see what's happening with the DRM mess

The DRM issues is the biggest reason I am unwilling to upgrade to it until I have to.

[Ferret]

I am actually quite looking forward to upgrading to Vista, I think a lot of the interface changes are very interesting and useful, there are some brilliant features tucked away into it, and I can only hope that they've learnt thier lesson security wise from the fiasco that is XP.

[aldo_14]

XP features excluded:

IPX networks are no longer supported.


Will this mean trouble when I want to LAN older games like C&C95 or Red Alert? If so.. 

Probably.  Offhand a few of the security measures involve locking off hardware such as sockets.

Another side thing is that DirectX10 acts in such a way that it bind the accessible 'features' for graphics; i.e. rather than ATi or Nvidia being able to chose what features their card provides, it means MS can dictate them (there are also big questions about OGL support, which may run significantly slower due to wrapper or software emulation).    The apparent (bitlocker) restriction upon dual-booting with different OS' is also annoying, as is the oddles of DRM.

Offhand,  a number of consultants/researchers have popped up and noted Vista doesn't actually offer anything new that 3rd party tools don't do.  I doubt that Vista will be any more free of security holes than XP or 2000 are; there's a very simple law of averages that means any complex code will have errors within it. 

And I have to admit, the thought of needing to upgrade my PC for a ****ing operating system, when my PC runs perfectly well for normal applications, is more than a little galling.

[Fineus]

Well my computer could run it.. but like others here the DRM restrictions realy have me worried.

[SadisticSid]

Vista seems to be a step in the right direction, but it's basically a more *nix-like Windows with a shiny new interface.

*nix-like would imply you have more control over your system, not less. Somehow I doubt this.

[Kosh]

but like others here the DRM restrictions realy have me worried.

It's unfortunate that most people in the world don't mind being locked out of content they paid for. MS gets away with things like this because of that and because there are simply too many DRM apologists.

[Nix]

All I can say is that I hope it does get released sometime around november so I can get it for 6 bucks from my MSDNAA supplier next fall.  That'd be the shizz-NIIITE. Hopefully they'll bundle the 64 bit version with the 32 bit version like my XP set I got this year from them. 

[Fury]

Hopefully they'll bundle the 64 bit version with the 32 bit version like my XP set I got this year from them. 

Both 32-bit and 64-bit versions of Vista Home Basic, Home Premium and Ultimate will ship on same retail DVD's. Upgrading from Home Basic to Home Premium or Ultimate is supposedly made easy.

[Nix]

And, as always, get the Ultimate version, over the other versions.  I still pity those who got stuck with XP Home.  I mean, come on.. isn't there an easier way to change permissions in Home, without booting to Safe Mode?  Gah, I hate that home crap.

[Nuke]

i dont like the way most operating systems have to be resource whores. meaning an os should have a very small footprint on the system. at its most active state it sholdnt use more 10% of a systems resources. i like the way the interface now uses more video card resources, but no doubt it will be bloated with otherwise useless graphics. i dont worry about that much cause they offer a legacy mode. question is is it just made to look like the old interface or does it use less resources. this doesnt seem a problem to me if what they say about dx being 8 times faster is true. i hope the way it handles services is better. there are just so many useless serveces installed by default in windows xp, and poor descriptions of them make it difficult to know what the machine absolutely needs to run. reverse compatability better be damn good, i dont want  any more old games rendered unrunable. loosing reverse compatability and thus rendering all my software useless will likely make me use linux instead of buying all new sopftware. unless reverse compatability is absolutely perfect, it will destroy my intrest in upgrading. last issue i have is indeed drm. i can accept having drm if it is meant only to protect drm protected content. i cant have my mp3 and video collections rendered unuseable now can i? likely the drm will only protect mediea only on windows' applications, but 3rd party apps like winamp, should be able to continue functioning without henderance. if drm forbids use of legacy formats, it will be an absolute reason for me not to perchace the software. as of now theres only a couple reasons i use windows, photoshop for one (is adobe smart enough to make a linux version yet), and truespace. should i ever learn gimp and lightwave, and freespace modding tools get ported to linux, microsoft will immedeately loose a customer.

[kode]

My present computer can't run it, my future computer(s) won't run it. There hasn't been any new games out I'm interested in either, so I'll just keep an install of XP around and switch to BSD.