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Windows Vista ridiculed!

I’m shocked. Today I visited Marcin Gorny’s blog. Beside of other interests, he is a beta tester of Microsoft products.

Now, take a look at those screenshots. Screenshot 1, Screenshot 2, Screenshot 3, Screenshot 4.

Notice that this is slightly modified Windows XP.
Now, thanks to the magic, in 15 minutes you can do almost the same amount of work as Microsoft did in 5 years! Marcin published the full step-by-step description on how to modify WinXP into Vista look&feel.

Now. Tell me. If we can agree that you can have WindowsXP looks like Vista. What Microsoft, the biggest IT company in the world, did between year 2001 and 2006 when they were/are working on Windows Vista?
Is that the same as they’re doing with IE7? The same old Trident, and a bunch of code that was previously coded for Maxthon?

I’m wondering if it’s possible to legally create customized build of Windows XP so it looks like Vista and sell it in WinXP price.

20 replies on “Windows Vista ridiculed!”

Riddle: I’m reading everything I can find. Can you give me an example of those “fundamental” new things that will make switch to Vista reasonable? (including buying it)

Gandalf, in the same easy way, by using few programs, Windows XP can be changed to look like MacOS X, but does that makes it OSX? Of course a lot has been made around the look, but that’s not all this system has and will have to offer. As someone said IIRC on Neowin, “Comparing Vista to XP is like comparing MacOS X to MacOS 9”. And don’t be so surprised about the fact that WindowBlinds can imitate look and visual effects of Vista. StarDock works closely with Microsoft and it’s both side cooperation. For example, DesktopX widgets will work on Vista itself, without any additional programs.

Riddle, Pitreck, I agree with Gandalf.
Which Vista feature will make me switch from XP? I’m not convinced as welll….

“Beside of other interests, he is a beta tester of Microsoft products.”

Hmm and so what?!?!?!
Many beta testers adds it’s builds and keys to public, stole code or add uxthemme.dll to public or even not do anything because they what to have free product . I do my bet to help Microsoft. And I not provide no data what was from Vista..LOL ridiculed.
Dude Windows Vista is more than just visual !!!!!!!

I really should be deleted from all betas now!!!!

Marcin: nothing, I just mentioned you’re connected somehow with MS technologies.

My suprise about your Walkthrough is because I have a problem to list the new features of Windows Vista beside new skin and fast-search engine…

Windows Defender integrated in the system
Windows Update integrated into Control Panel (so you don’t have to go to website any more
MediaCenter
New conception of SECURITY (UAP and more)
New stuff like Clandar, Picture Viewer
Avalon
Aero
Indigo
Network Center
Virtual Folders
New Speech
New whole Control panel
New Icons (I mean I can resize them in the folder as I want and they look always clear)
Sidebar
WMP11
New Process Viewer
And more usefull stuffs….

Riddiculed? Why? It’s easy to make XP look like Vista – it’s just a matter of visual styles. (Dis)Functionality is yet another matter.
Windows is not my OS of choice BUT you’re missing the point here, I’m afraid…

> New conception of SECURITY (UAP and more)

Hmm… We’ll see…
But wait. WinXP *is* secure according to MS, right? So?

> New stuff like Clandar, Picture Viewer

There is calendar and picture viewer in WinXP and those are quite easy to use.

> Avalon

Beside of that I’ll never forgive MS using celtic fantasy keyword, it seems to be something really new for Microsoft. For user it’ll mean eye-candy and problems with OpenGl stuff 😉

> Aero

Isn’t that the GUI you just “ported” to WinXP?

> Indigo

Not for users

> Network Center
> New whole Control panel
> New Process Viewer

Yes, yes, everything new… Sorry, that’s cosmetic change…

> New Icons (I mean I can resize them in the folder as I want and they look always clear)

Yes, I know, other OS’es are working on the same for some time now 😉 It’s a part of Avalon, right?

> Sidebar

You can have it in WinXP?

> WMP11

You can have it in WinXP?

> And more usefull stuffs….

Sure…

I’m afraid that you missed the point of my question. I’m not asking about “what new will be in the Vista, but “What so absolutely great will be there so users should pay money for that?”.
The difference between OpenSource and properitary software is that in OpenSource, you update just because it’s obviously more stable, newer, modern etc. But there’s no “price” issue, so it’s easy.
Microsoft wants people to pay for OS, and they’re creating their new OS for 5 years now, so I could expect much more than cosmetic changes, some architectural reorganisation, and catching up MacOS, right?

I feel really dissappointed because I thought that Vista will be similar difference for Windows like Win 3.11->Win 95 switch or MacOS9->MacOS10… And it looks at the moment more like Windows 98->WindowsXP.

> But wait. WinXP *is* secure according to MS, right? So?

But that doesn’t mean it couldn’t get better, right?
UAP is a step forward to *nix type of security, where you have to approve the program to run with administrator privileges. Plus you have a Windows Defender, which is antispyware program with real time protection. Nothing will be changed on disk or in registry without your knowledge.

> There is calendar and picture viewer in WinXP and those are quite easy to use.

No, there’s no sunbird alike program bundled into XP. As for Picture Viewer, I believe Marcin was talking about Windows Photo Gallery, which is much more powerful tool, closer to ACDC or InfranView, than to XP Picture Viewer.

> > Indigo
> Not for users

You are wrong here. Indigo is the thing that all Windows Vista users will take benefits of. It creates a p2p network connecting all Vista users. In Windows Mail (ex. OE) for example, you can take advantages from Bayesian spam filters crated by other users and created by hotmail. Also, if I’m not wrong, Windows Collaboration and Solutions to problems uses Indigo. The second one (STP) lets you send unsended failure reports at any time and it checks if there is solution for your problems.

> > WMP11
> You can have it in WinXP?

No, WMP11 will be Vista only.

> Microsoft wants people to pay for OS, and they’re creating their new OS for 5 years now, so I could expect much more than cosmetic changes, some architectural reorganization, and catching up MacOS, right?

Changes in Windows Vista in comparison to previous releases aren’t cosmetic. A lot has been changed both for users and for developers. Users will get better security with improved firewall, Windows Defender, UAP, NGSCB (ex. Palladium) and better feedback on problems. They will also get ACDC-like image viewing program, parental controls for games, Internet, programs, Windows Calendar, DVD movie making program, media center functionality, possibility of speech control over entire system and user installed apps (yes, even Firefox), indexing and fast search of all files, easier folders navigation, faster gaming because Vista will be disabling services that aren’t required when playing games, faster and less resources using OS because CPU and RAM won’t be involved in displaying desktop and explorer. If you would like to buy programs that will do those things, you would pay for them much more than for Vista itself. Plus, there’s one more benefit for users – PE. With it, you can diagnose, cure and optimize the OS and PC by using GUI Win32 programs. So no more those ugly bootable DOS tools. As for developers, how about decreasing 76,000 Win32 APIs to about 8,000? 🙂

> I feel really disappointed because I thought that Vista will be similar difference for Windows like Win 3.11->Win 95 switch or MacOS9->MacOS10… And it looks at the moment more like Windows 98->WindowsXP.

Hmm? Vista in comparison to XP already brings the biggest changes between two successive Windows releases in decade in terms of look, usability, functionality, security and bundled applications, so right now actually it is like 3.11->95 switch.

Pitreck:
> Hmm? Vista in comparison to XP already brings the biggest changes between two successive Windows releases in decade in terms of look, usability, functionality, security and bundled applications, so right now actually it is like 3.11->95 switch.

Well, I must say that I still don’t see this. I see that they’re clearing the mess inside the OS, splitting things into components, clearing API’s, moveing to modern API feature set (catching up MacOS). But I don’t see much reason for a company to buy new Windows yet.

Marcin:
> did you ever use it?! Or just got pirated stuff and complain?!?!?!?!?

No, should I feel offended? I’m not using pirated OS’es and I’m not a Windows user.

I’m going to trust you now, I’m not familiar that much with ongoing Vista development process, and my knowledge is based on Wikipedia article mostly. In my spare time, I’m working much more on KDE 4 now, and I hoped to have a lot of ideas to gather from investigating Vista planned feature set, but comparing my list of KDE 4 ideas based on Kollaboration work with Vista feature set, I don’t see much fresh things. That’s all.
I hope that you guys, have your feelings based not only on what Microsoft said, but also compared with a wider background like Gnome development, MacOS X development and KDE development, and basing on this, wide knowledge base, you claim that Vista will be so revolutionary.

Don’t get angry Marcin, there’s enough room for two different points of view, we can discuss without LOLing on each other.

-> Gandalf
I can only speak for my self, but I don’t base my opinion on what MS were said, because they say little to none. I’m basing my opinion mostly on my experience with previous releases of Windows, Vista builds and back then Longhorn builds. I also listen what people that have friends at Microsoft have to say, because they know more than ordinary people and they have access to internal builds. Plus, I’m watching KDE development since version 3.0 and GNOME development since 2.4. I also played a bit with MacOS X 10.3 on PearPC, but that’s not enough to express my own opinion about it nor to compare Vista with OSX.

-> djurban
It’s Miranda IM.

Pitreck,
What plugins are used there? I have miranda here and cant make it show descriptions in the contact list and icons too.

I’m on Vista Beta2 right now. And to be serious:
It is Windows XP with a new GUI. The BETA is kinda sloppy and the interface elements seem confusing.
I am a windows guy but Gnome/KDE look more promising.

Windows Vista…. if only 3rd party software was compatible !
I have to stay on xp because none of the programs i want to use will run on vista
they will at some stage, but that’s no use to me now?… is it ?

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