New year starts with the new wave of informations about upcoming Microsoft OS. In the last post I received a lot of criticizm from MS oriented people who listed me new things that will be in Vista. I also took a look at Bill Gates’s list which seems to be similar and the new Vista Tour, to be able to talk more about what’s there and how it compares to other GUI’s.
First of all I think that the new things in Vista we can split into two groups. First is the list of under-the-hood, skeleton, API changes. Second is a list of on-top, user-focused UI things. And one thing is interesting. There seems to be no change in the relation between user and the OS. I’ll talk about it more later.
The former group, is the list of things like Aero, Avalon, Indigo and other technologies that are just a big step in the direction of open source GUI’s philosophy. Components with visible API’s. I’m wondering about how they’re going to mix it with the WinNT concept if it’ll look like a mix of old and new models (remember WinME?). Gates doesn’t mention this as a keyfeature of Vista, which is good. No end user will be interested if his windows are rendered by Avalon, Idahoo, or FunnyBunny. Really, really.
The later is focused on user. It’s all those small and big changes that will make user life easier. And here Microsoft seems to do well. All screenshots looks like they took every part of the UI and polished it in the direction of MacOS, Google Picassa, Mozilla Firefox, etc. Good job. If users like Windows XP, and they do, then they will like Vista, as it looks like a polished version of XP. There are also three new (for Microsoft) concepts. First is 3D window switcher, second is search engine, and third is a defender app.
The important thing is that all of this are just evolution steps from Windows XP parts. No changes in the fundamental ideas behind the OS and it’s GUI. No change in the way user interacts with the environment. All, so called “new things” like “New control panel” “new media player”, “new icons”, “new sth else” it in fact just an update. The real change, deep one, is just one. From what I heard Windows Vista will be available in many editions. From console based one, to multi-server. It means that Microsoft is not so sure anymore that it really knows better what user wants/needs. And the feeling that “I know better what my user wants” is the key problem of all properitary software.
Now, is that good that Microsoft is now changing the idea behind their Desktop? I’m not sure. It will preserve the current state of Desktops for many years, since I don’t believe that Microsoft will release any next OS (beside of Vista Update 2 kind of) before year 2012, users will be able to use an update version of what they like to use and comptetitors will have a chance to prepare something really fresh. It really looks to me like the situation pre IE 6.0. It was better than 5.0, it was cleaner, but very similar… And it opened a chance to create Firefox, to evolve for Opera and to make the market shake the butt. Will the same happens to Desktop market? I’m more than sure that yes, it will, because Microsoft is still doing big mistakes, like it did with the WWW world… and… just wait for next Mac OS, and KDE4 😉
6 replies on “More on Windows”
Vista is ok, but why they stop supporting XP in 2007? I understand… 98, 2000, but XP? The predecessor of Vista? Insane… and I will pay for this mistake. :/
I don’t think that they’ll stop support for XP in 2007. A lot of users moved from their 98/2000 editions to XP recently and they’ll not change their OS soon. I think that XP will be some kind of 98 successor and we’ll see it in stats even in 2010 🙂
Riddle, they’re not insane! There are CLEVER and crazy for money, bastards. Now you will have to buy Vista (a piece of shit as it must be) to have a supported OS.
MS sucks, a lot…
bah! that means I’d have to upgrade my hardware for Vista. I thought OS was for interacting with the hardware, now we have hardware for interacting with the OS. *rolls eyes*
Gandalf, you are still saying the same you were in previous blog entry treating about Vista, just in more polite way. Please, don’t base your opinion about this OS upon what you have read and what you have seen on screenshots, because you are making yourself ridiculous when saying things such as there’s “no change in the way user interacts with the environment”. A lot things has been changed or improved in Vista, and there will be a lot more, when WinFS will join in, but MS won’t change completely user experience. They can loose to much that way, so don’t expect Vista or any next Windows to be something similar to what been shown in the Minority Report.
I know you have tried previous builds of this OS when it still was called Longhorn, so I don’t see any reason for which you can’t just download 5270 build to try and base your opinion on. Now you have graphics card that supports DX9, so you can see this system in whole.
Oh, as for Vista editions. XP has 6 editions; Starter, Home, Professional, Professional Corporate, Tablet PC (OEM only) and Media Center (OEM only). Vista will have one more edition (Ultimate that is), but with that difference, that Starter will be called Windows Starter 2007. Other editions doesn’t have final names yet, but they will have Vista prefix.