Neowin.net - PDC 2005: Select Windows Vista screenshots

PDC 2005: Select Windows Vista screenshots

Posted by Brad Wardell on 14 September 2005 - 23:31 · 33 comments & 12542 views

Screenshots of Windows Vista are relatively easy to find. But based on the email I've received, people have been looking for specific types of screenshots.

With some help from AlphaAlien I was able to toy around with the PDC version of the Windows Sidebar for awhile and take some shots of how Microsoft's gadgets may be implemented (still preliminary).

In addition, some users have asked whether the new build of Vista had started replacing the ugly old Windows NT 3.1 icons from 1994. And others wanted to what the new file/save dialog looks like, especially in terms of putting keyword tags on files.

Overall, Vista is looking good, the journey to Beta 2 continues. Check the link below for the full story on the current build.

Stay tuned for continuing Neowin.net coverage, live from PDC.

View: Selected Windows Vista screenshots

Windows Vista Starter Edition

Only sold in emerging markets
Very feature limited
Only 3 simultaneous applications running

Windows Vista Home Basic Edition

Equivalent to XP Home
Includes firewall, parental controls, Security Center, Movie Maker, Photo Library and more
For first time buyer / budget conscious

Windows Vista Home Premium Edition

Everything from Vista Home Basic
Adds DVD video authoring, HDTV support, DVD ripping support
Similar to current XP Media Center edition but with added features

Windows Vista Professional Edition

Aimed at the business consumer
Can join domain, has IIS web server
Akin to XP Pro

Windows Vista Small Business Edition

Designed for small businesses without IT staff
Backup and Shadow Copy support, Castle and server-join networking, and PC fax and scanning utility
Pre-paid access to the Windows Live! Small Business or Microsoft Office Live! subscription services

Windows Vista Enterprise Edition

Optimized for the enterprise
Ships with Virtual PC & the multi-language user interface (MUI)
Aimed at business decision makers, IT managers and decision makers, and information workers/general business users.

Windows Vista Ultimate Edition

"The best operating system ever offered for a personal PC"
Superset of both Vista Home Premium and Vista Pro Edition
Podcasting application, Game Performance Tweaker, possible free music/movie downloads

Hide additional information

About the Author
Full name: Brad Wardell
Forum name: Frogboy
Contact: via forum PM
Submissions: Normal · Headline

Total votes: 0

Bookmark on del.icio.us

Advertisement

(1 reply) #1 Posted by ShadowPHP on 14 Sep 2005 - 23:33: Good Job Brad!

(4 replies) #2 Posted by Jugalator on 14 Sep 2005 - 23:37

Good to have some more screenshots, but it's kind of weird when the summary is this

QUOTE

Overall, Vista's a really good experience. But I do hope there's an overall fit and finish guy over there so that things like ancient icons and inconsistent fonts get fixed. Some of these icons have managed to survive since Windows NT 3.1 (1994).

Come on, that's details for a beta. They haven't even started the serious QA work on this one yet. That's way way down the priority list for Microsoft and it's brought up as a pre-beta 2 remark? I'm still looking for info on what's new in this build compared to 5112, and then it's just frustrating to see these details brought up instead of actual OS changes. I guess I'll have to rely on Paul Thurott again for the review.

#2.1 Posted by Frogboy on 14 Sep 2005 - 23:41: And yet people complained about the crappy icons floating around here and there during the Windows 2000 beta. And then they did again during the Whistler beta. And those icons managed to survive.

It is not wise to assume that the ugly WinNT 3.1 icons, which went through QA through 3 major versions of Windows NT (NT 4, Win2K, and WinXP) won't manage to slip through again.

#2.2 Posted by Jugalator on 14 Sep 2005 - 23:43: I'm saying 1) they haven't started serious polish yet, and 2) it's probably way way down their priorities.

No assumptions of any total icon makeovers done here.

And it would actually not surprise me if they this time around also miss a bunch. It's likely they do given the sheer size of the OS.

But my point isn't any of that, but that I'd like to see news in this build instead of nits about icons.

#2.3 Posted by Frogboy on 14 Sep 2005 - 23:47: Different people have different requests. Feel free to email me at draginol@gmail.com with what you'd like to see. Other people emailed requests for these particular screenshots. If you or anyone else reading this has a request, let me know.

#2.4 Posted by Jugalator on 14 Sep 2005 - 23:51: My problem is that I don't know what to request, because I don't know what the news in this build are.
Besides Alt-Tab, sidebar (or was that lifted in this PDC build?), and taskbar hover effects.

For example knowing about any changes in IE 7 could be interesting? Besides tab preview I guess.

Also, is Monad included in this build?

#3 Posted by lylesback2 on 14 Sep 2005 - 23:39: the 4th image.. isn't the exact same as the large image... it's a crop of it.

very very nice images however, i am looking forward to getting my hands on a copy of windows vista

#4 Posted by matt74441 on 14 Sep 2005 - 23:44: Come on Brad, why you gotta tease everyone like that :p

#5 Posted by Nexx295 on 15 Sep 2005 - 00:54: Mirror: http://www.maxterhost.com/gallery

Just in case the other mirror goes down.

#6 Posted by Rutager on 15 Sep 2005 - 00:55: I was really hoping that they'd get rid of the "Start" from the start button. I can live with it though.

#7 Posted by g_denne on 15 Sep 2005 - 02:26: If anyone from Microsoft reads this, please can you makeover all icons in Windows Vista and get rid of the awful looking legacy icons that are still in Windows Xp? I really hope you do this before releasing your product, otherwise, it's a laughing stock. You claim it will be a state of the art "clarity" operating system...don't leave those blocky 1980's icons in there, k?

#8 Posted by Ely on 15 Sep 2005 - 02:32: I must agree on the ugly ancient icons, I can't stand them myself, Please Microsoft be sure to remove them

#9 Posted by J_R_G on 15 Sep 2005 - 02:34: I agree, I hate those in XP SP2, otherwise a fine OS.

#10 Posted by j0j081 on 15 Sep 2005 - 02:36: looks pretty good for a work in progress. i am impressed.

#11 Posted by rajputwarrior on 15 Sep 2005 - 04:12: windows is looking really good, but the requirements are just ridiculous

#12 Posted by JakeM741 on 15 Sep 2005 - 04:23: whats the deal with the windows 98 icons...

#13 Posted by KoL on 15 Sep 2005 - 04:25: I dont know why even all those icon made it to XP. They are UGLY

#14 Posted by matt74441 on 15 Sep 2005 - 04:58: Its a good question why all of those old icons keep making appearances in recent versions of Windows. If I recall correctly, does't XP ship with a clock video from Windows 3.1?

#15 Posted by SeBsZ on 15 Sep 2005 - 05:23: Matt, that is right. It is at c:windowsclock.avi , everone should have it. It's the ugliest clock I've ever seen and it counts up from 1 to 12.

EDIT: why are my slashes removed: c:/Windows/Clock.avi and make those backslashes.

#16 Posted by g_denne on 15 Sep 2005 - 05:57: It's because Microsoft are sloppy, simple as that. I can't think of any other valid reason to not update the icons from Windows 3.1 in a modern, cutting edge OS they call Xp.

#17 Posted by Matt500 on 15 Sep 2005 - 07:13: New users are gonna be so confused by vista, way to many choices on everything.

#18 Posted by Roves on 15 Sep 2005 - 08:48

QUOTE

And others wanted to Know what the new file/save dialog looks like...

missing a word there

#19 Posted by SeBsZ on 15 Sep 2005 - 10:50: Hello guys. I just created a simple website (using notepad, so the design is crap) that will allow everyone to request screenshots of the new Windows Vista build. I will then go ahead and take the screenshots and email a link to the person who requested the screenshot to their screenshot. Hope you like it.

EDIT: You can find the site at: HERE

SeBsZ

Last edited by 73965 on 15 Sep 2005 - 14:30

#20 Posted by Dirtie on 15 Sep 2005 - 11:48: We need new icons guys

(1 reply) #21 Posted by ev0| on 15 Sep 2005 - 13:32: good to know the most important things to neowin users are new icons as opposed to any actual features, usability. Go use a mac FFS !

#22 Posted by Clay-Man on 15 Sep 2005 - 14:30: I'd love to know when Microsoft will finally present the "next-gen" UI stuff they've been talking about for so long. The PDC 2003 windows looked so great, why does a PDC 2005 build look like crap? Either Microsoft has some really bad designers in their team, or they just don't care about visuals or the final user experience. I want to see great design and I wanna have a streamlined workflow experience in Vista. Until now, I haven't seen anything but a few shots that look like WinXP with a badly designed custom theme.

#23 Posted by Mikeparkie on 15 Sep 2005 - 16:23: if you look at the screen shot on the new homepage it says beta 2!!!!

#24 Posted by xxhiroshi21xx on 15 Sep 2005 - 16:52: LoL OH wow.. I hope you guys know that your showcasing the stolen PDC build, Microsoft is investigating it right now, apparently someone stole it off of a PDC Machine using an iPod and ghost copy software. GG, you told them who did it and where to look, and even put Wincustomize at risk.

#25 Posted by ghos on 15 Sep 2005 - 17:35: The reason people are making such a big stink over the icons is besides them not having all been updated for XP, they just really stand out as old put up against newer icons.
I would assume they will update them since they look so awful and out of date. Plus they need to change them so they vector properly and are in the newer format.
It will be looked at as a failure if they don't fix this flaw.

As far as older legacy stuff in the OS, I agree some of it isn't needed anymore. Someone at MS needs to go through and get rid of the useless stuff. Do we really need progman.exe in there anymore? Old stuff now should be Win95, such as the classic look, not Win 3.1 !

#26 Posted by pdileepa on 17 Sep 2005 - 02:26: Wait until the beta 2 release. I am pretty sure that all the ugly icons will be gone by then. And Windows will look much much better with a completely new UI (different from what's there in beta 1... remember Whistler to XP beta 1 transition??).

#27 Posted by nexx on 21 Sep 2005 - 07:10: Long gone are the days of sliding my mouse to the far top left corner of the screen and knowing that clicking it will close a program...

[1]

Commenting has either been disabled on this article or you are not logged in. Click here to login or register, its free!

Note: Anonymous commenting is disabled in order to keep the quality of responses to a high standard.

Scroll to the Top