Microsoft has announced the official name and the beta for the operating system formerly known as Longhorn: Windows Vista. Now it’s time to have our questions answered! What new functionality will Vista provide? Will it run on my machine? And of course, what kind of name is Vista?
Contributed by Justin Cook Rating: / 21 September 01, 2005
Well, Microsoft has finally done it (sort of). They’ve announced the official moniker of the vaporware operating system formerly known as “Longhorn,” as well as given an official beta release date. If you’re reading this article, I needn’t tell you that the new name is “Windows Vista.” The beta is due August 3rd, but it probably won’t prove exceedingly difficult to obtain it in advance of that date. We can finally have some questions answered and maybe conjure up a few new ones.
The New Functionality, or Lack Thereof
When Microsoft first announced their plans for the revolutionary new operating system, there were some heavy promises attached. We heard names tossed like WinFS, a completely revamped file-system. Indigo and Avalon heralded forth as a complete web services architecture and an amazing new underlying graphical architecture respectively.
Looking back, I feel like I was pawn to a cheesy political campaign: “read my lips, no more NTFS.” Well, time, resources, and reality have taken their toll on the feature list. WinFS has been altogether removed, while Indigo and Avalon have both been seriously revised. (not to mention boring new names: WCF – Windows Communication Foundation, and WPF – Windows Presentation Foundation).
In what I would call a pathetic attempt to lessen the loss of WinFS, Microsoft has tapped into some of the extensive “metadata” capabilities that are already available in NTFS, but have been merely underused. This move is a little less than disappointing. One preview mentioned that now Windows Explorer will surface more information about each file. For example, we’ll even see the model of the digital camera used to take my pictures. How excited does this make me? Well for one thing, experienced XP users could already see this information if they wanted. And secondly, I doubt that more than ten people on this planet even care to see the exact model of the camera that was used on their last vacation! Besides, everyone I know has only one digital camera.
OK, enough with WinFS. There's no revolutionary new file system, but I’ll get over it. What I really want to know is what new features and functionality will actually be provided, and what the tradeoff will be in new hardware costs.
This brings me to one inevitable issue. Microsoft claims that Vista will start up and run applications significantly faster that Windows XP. I wonder though if this is because a significantly faster machine is required to run the system. I foresee some disappointment for those people who simply bought an upgrade CD to run XP and hope to do the same for Vista. While the majority of Dev Hardware readers have (at a minimum) 1 GB of RAM and 2 GHz plus CPU, most people out there don’t place quite the same priority on staying on the bleeding edge of technology. It will be very interesting to see how the general populace takes the forced hardware upgrade!
To see if Vista will run on your current hardware, you can find a quick guide on the Microsoft Windows Vista information page here. A short rundown of the requirements on the page:
Processor: Modern mid-range and high-end processors will do, but Microsoft is really pushing users to upgrade to dual cores and x64 chips.
Memory: Microsoft says 512 MB is required, but 1 GB is recommended.
Graphics: Vista will demand at least 64 MB of video memory and DirectX 9 capable cards. Avoid low end video cards.
Storage: Microsoft is suggesting SATA drives over IDE and also buying a DVD writer.
I am not as fortunate as some to have an extra high-powered machine sitting around purely for testing purposes, so I usually take another route. Generally speaking, I like to try out a beta product, or a new Linux distro, inside a safely contained VM Ware session. So I bumped up the maximum memory for the session, hotwired the settings VM Ware to allow maximum CPU usage, and fired up Vista Beta1 (almost drooling in anticipation).
Much to my dismay, I could get as far as choosing the hard drive to install to, and no further. The beta install system detected the hard drive but told me it was unavailable, and it recommended I “enable it in the system BIOS.” Undeterred, I tried a new, larger virtual hard drive. No go. I scoured support groups. If you have an answer to my virtual hard drive issue, please contact me!
Windows Vista screenshots more or less bring up all the same general screens:
Virtual folders
Pictures and video (with a very pretty looking fish)
Desktop search
The start menu
So, what are my impressions? Not to be overly critical here, but I was honestly expecting something a little more… revolutionary. Last year, I saw a conceptual preview of a new Java-powered desktop and there was also SphereXP, and both were extremely impressive. Vista however, looks like little more like Windows XP with a semi-transparent (Why don’t they say translucent? Is semi-transparent better for marketing?) Window-blinds skin attached to it.
It also appears that some of the icons are, well, shinier. At this point I’m not sure if the added-value of seeing my background image through a translucent taskbar is truly valuable enough to merit the cost of upgrading my system, especially when third party programs already do that to XP.
I’ve read many opinions so far of people who feel that the GUI looks strikingly similar to Mac OS X. Well, I’m neither going to defend Microsoft nor agree with any opinions. However, all I will say is that Microsoft has been accused of many things, and originality is not one of them. Hopefully any new additions to the UI that they’ve either invented or been "inspired" to implement are the results of much usability testing.
To me, many of the new icons bear a slight resemblance to many nearly-mainstream Linux distributions. In no way do I think this is a bad thing, I’ve always preferred the look of Suse, or even Linspire for that matter, to Windows.
Virtual Folders looks to be a potentially promising option. This feature basically allows users to view documents that share specific criteria, such as "edited in the last week" or "containing the word 'budget.’” While at a fundamental level, this is more or less the extension of some canned search terms with Windows search, it is good in the sense that most people didn’t realize they could already achieve these sorts of views into their file system.
Well, I suppose it’s about time to discuss the new name, Vista. First of all, what are others saying?
Polls are showing that about 42 percent of people who care enough to take the poll feel that they’ll get used to the name. About 15 percent are OK with it or like it. And the remaining 43 percent dislike or hate it. This remainder is the most outspoken by far! Comments ranging from the Latvian meaning of vista (hen), to interpreting it as an acronym meaning Viruses, Infections, Spyware, Trojans, and Adware. Of course my favorite yet is the Vista cruiser: slow, dodgy, and old.
But how do I feel about it? Honestly, I think these people may be a little too critical. It is only a name after all, which really changes nothing about the underlying security, reliability, and usability of the system.
I think Vista is a pretty decent title from a marketing perspective. It is far better than 95, 98, or 2000, which quickly become outdated. It’s even better than XP, which really has no associative meaning to anyone on Earth! “Vista” portrays vision, clarity, expanded horizons. Whether or not obtaining the OS will actually result in obtaining those intangible qualities is somewhat dubious, but that’s what marketing’s all about!
Unfortunately, Microsoft has (unknowingly?) encroached on the naming rights of a business software and services company, also out of Redmond. It will be interesting to see what legal action, if any, results, but I think Vista software could definitely use the mix-up to a distinct business advantage. I know I would.
Conclusion
All things said and done, all things beta that is, I’m left wanting more. At this point, “more” would even include actually being able to run the OS inside a Virtual Machine. I do hope that by final ship date (which may very well be pushed out an additional 12 months) Microsoft has listened to tester feedback. Perhaps they will consider including some previously promised functionality. If not, I for one will most likely be content to stick with XP.
Since not much is really changing, Microsoft marketing has the job of making current Windows look less functional. Most informed shoppers may be lukewarm about the new features. But at least we can say “Hasta la Vista” to the XP logo. Oh wait…
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