Once again Paul Thurrott has put out another review of Windows Vista. However, this time Paul Thurrott voices his concerns about the darker side of Vista. The side of Vista that really makes you wonder what the heck Microsoft was doing the past few years since PDC 2003. Here is a snippet from Paul Thurrott's site regarding Microsoft’s Windows Vista 'User Account Protection':
The bad news, then, is that UAP is a sad, sad joke. It's the most annoying feature that Microsoft has ever added to any software product, and yes, that includes that ridiculous Clippy character from older Office versions. The problem with UAP is that it throws up an unbelievable number of warning dialogs for even the simplest of tasks. That these dialogs pop up repeatedly for the same action would be comical if it weren't so amazingly frustrating. It would be hilarious if it weren't going to affect hundreds of millions of people in a few short months. It is, in fact, almost criminal in its insidiousness.
View: Full Story
News source: Paul Thurrott's SuperSite
The bad news, then, is that UAP is a sad, sad joke. It's the most annoying feature that Microsoft has ever added to any software product, and yes, that includes that ridiculous Clippy character from older Office versions. The problem with UAP is that it throws up an unbelievable number of warning dialogs for even the simplest of tasks. That these dialogs pop up repeatedly for the same action would be comical if it weren't so amazingly frustrating. It would be hilarious if it weren't going to affect hundreds of millions of people in a few short months. It is, in fact, almost criminal in its insidiousness.
View: Full Story News source: Paul Thurrott's SuperSite
OH NOES Micro$oft has a bunch of pop ups!111 They are hte ev1l!!11!
He spends a large part on the hurdles interfering with the Vista development that led to the restart on the Server 2003 kernel and feature cuts, so please don't just comment based on the excerpt in the summary above.
One point of ease of use of an OS is how it reduces user interaction when performing certain tasks, not to increase the user interaction to stop user from deleting Shortcuts on ther desktop, or loads up Task Manager!
They just made it pretty, and got rid of non-NT operative systems...
Vista just seems like xp with "more" visual effects...
I'm totally sure most of the things he points out WILL be addressed by the final release; all that stuff about the active window come on the GUI is NOT YET FINAL for God's sake!, the UAP I have heard from the start that users would be able to "Bless" applications or actions they don't want to keep allowing over and over at some point and I'm sure Microsoft is addressing that issue before the final build.
All the so called removed features on Vista WILL BE THERE as separate downloads/addons etc so that's all empty words and talk without taking the FACTS into consideration, this was done so that people who decide NOT to upgrade to Vista could also take advantage of the features offered by these addons thus also improving the overall experience among users of the different Windows versions so all versions could interact with each other ( backward compatibility between applications that will make use of the new technologies provided by those addons which will ALSO be available for other versions of Windows)
I can't believe he wrote that review it's just not him; looks like it was done by some 15 year old kiddo in his myspace blog.
Look, don't blindly follow behind Microsoft on this one, and don't blindly support an inferior product. Thurrott is saying exactly what testers and developers have been saying for MONTHS.
Vista is NOT the OS Microsoft promised us, at all. But it seems like some people are more content to spew out marketing drivel as fact instead of looking at the reality of the situation.
Vista release is still months ahead, but despite all the critiscm, they have been following the same path and there is no sign that vista is going to be substantially different than it is now
uap, imo, is a pos. it's nothing more than an annoyance to me, which gets in the way of the most minor of tasks. i mean hey, who wants to spend 15 minutes figuring out how to set up access to their old windows install just for a wallpaper....cmon now, i realize that maybe if it was a restricted account, but on an administrator account, sheesh.
just my 2 cents though. uap is more of a bloatware then an advantage.
GOD knows why MS is having problems with a simple & nice security model, thats already in place for so long !!
While the review is harsh, every word of it is true. Paul is voicing his concerns to Microsoft over the many, many false promises of this next OS, and to learn from the massive mistakes that were made.
I give Kudos to Paul for his blunt honesty. With the strides MS has made with the other divisions, the Windows division does not seem to get it.
It is much easier to give praise to any company for what they are doing right. It takes cahonas to be truthful and say what is needed to be said.
That being said there are a lot of really cool things going into Vista, I like how they are moving a lot of kernel functions into the user space instead of the kernel space. I also think its good to have the hardware accelerated desktop in Vista as it'll free up system resources for other tasks. However, I dont like all the DRM that MS is putting in Vista, while UAP is a great idea, currently it sucks. I prefer Apple's method with OS X to Vista's. I also think that MS has bitten off more than it can chew so to say and is going to release a product that is more like going from Win2k -> XP than from Win 3.11 to Win 95. Ive heard application compatiblity sucks too right now, havent played with that too much right now but it doesnt sound good.
Minus a few security improvements and a "pretty" interface, i dont see any real reason to switch to Vista. Honestly I think MS should just push back Vista till June 2007, include the monad shell with it that is being left out for now and Microsoft should just really make Vista a polished and powerful OS. As it stands Vista could be the next Windows ME if they arent careful. As for me? I use linux on my desktop/server and have a mac laptop....I use whatever OS though meets my needs best and would have no problem buying Vista if MS get's their act together but so far its not promising. Please no flames, this is all my opinions and impressions thus far with Vista and Im just sharing my 2 cents.
And the Edgy Eft (6.12) will blow Vista outta the water.
I know this comment isnt exactly based on the article's main topic but that paper clip was one of the most annoying things you can find on a computer. I've seen viruses with more character than that damn paper clip. Someone should have made a program where you could bend and break him as with a normal paperclip when your bored!
Cal
But thats just me, I'm kind of odd that way.
Cormac
I've also followed paul's articles for quite a long time. Im not quite sure what to make of this, Really. Windows Vista IS a good step forward for many reasons, But its not the marketed leap-ahead (forgive the pun) that it was hyped up to be.
To say that im completely disappointed? Not really. I can see the strong foundation that vista will bring. A cleaner, less-of-a-hack-job kernel that can be used as a base for everything else to come in the future, now that the OS is more component based. Those features will come eventually. Later rather then sooner, true, But not that late. And the more work MS puts into these features in ite renewed state (with the new Windows Division manager) the better.
As some here said, Even if vista's state right now in its pre-beta2 days seems a bit.. awkward.. I'll reserve judgement until i get a look on an RC or even the RTM build.
Stop defending MS's blunders, this is what let's them get away with releasing such garbage! Demand that MS fix this junk! Do you honestly want to be stuck with UAP nagging you like this? Or another bug-ridden, bloated OS?
I'd happily wait 'til 2008 if Vista was going to really be fixed. I don't want to be a paying beta-tester for another unfinished, hastily-designed MS OS with a lame GUI.
DON'T SHIP VISTA UNTIL IT'S FIXED!
I encourage you to go back and read some of his previous articles then, especially any of his Vista overviews or the Internet Explorer boycott article.
Apparently you haven't been reading his beta reviews for very long. Perhaps you need to look for his beta reviews from XP, 2K, NT, etc. They were generally glowing.
He does this, IMO on purpose, to get deeper into what Microsoft is doing with a certain product. He'll post something later on, after having used a new build or has talked with people from the Windows team and he'll post the exact opposite of everything he's ranted about earlier and he'll keep mentioning Microsoft and how good they're doing, kissing their butt. Then after a certain amount of time has gone by, he'll post another rant. Just go look through his site and you'll notice how he likes doing this. He's very immature in what he does. I feel he's just an immature person who has absolutely no patience at all and he has these "hissy fits" just to get some stuff from Microsoft to stop his whining. Just look through his site he does it everytime. Why do you think he does nothing but brag about having all this "inside info". He's a little kid who needs to stop posting rants.
Yes, Windows Vista is a big disappointment right now, but it'll still be a lot better and secure than XP and you can't forget IT'S NOT EVEN FINISHED and who knows what could happen between now and the day it comes out.
Last edited by NightmarE D on 20 Apr 2006 - 17:23
Of course, with the management changes, they may/will reneg on calling it feature complete and push back the release... again.
I agree though with his article completely as far as Vista goes. MS will simply fail to fix Vista in upcoming 7 months, cause that thing is just too broken...and I think 1 more delay is inevitable which isn't that bad when You look at Vista state now.
He also failed to mention that menu structure and explorer usability went down compared to XP and Adminstration part of Vista which will affect IT world has been needlessly complicated and burried into 5th+ layer of the interface.
well, he figured that he shouldn't comment about performance of the OS as yet, as it's not tuned and alot of debug codes are still in there which slows down the system. But if you ever happen to see a process eating up CPU process without an apparent reason then bug it.
If these numbers reflect on final Vista and there is no reason not to, since all MS betas have/had large chunks of debug code, the You can't simply expect performance to jump to aceptable levels like it was magically wanded ^^
That being said, this is the first well written article Paul has posted in...well, in quite a long time.
I would rather more points about what Vista fails at now.
UAC is certainly one for now, and the team has "promised" to fine-tune it in future builds.
The Windows Search - to me - is pretty useless. Also the in-place filtering for folder is somewhat useful, but adding all available items again, and delete the ones that don't match, is quite an unefficient way to do filtering.
IE7 is way too bulky than it seems should be.
He's right about Aero Glass, it's hard to distinguish which window has the focus without looking at the Red Cross X at top right.
I smell something else is out there but just can't think of what it is... oh well
but as always, there are goods with Vista of course. So let's just watch how it evolves over time.
It has evolved over time to what it is now. How much more time is needed? From right now until Jan 2007 isn't going to make a difference. Vista will be another WinME. No thanks.
Pot, meet kettle.
Exactly what I was thinking.
I know there ARE loads of improvements but... it doesnt seem NEW. It DOES SEEM like a remake version of XP.
I've never tried Vista, but from what I heard was good.. Now looking at Paul Thurrott's article.. I can now see just how annoying it will be.
lets just hope "vienna" is going to be a total remake of the UI and new features that work
Finally its good to see Paul (who is incredibly far up MS ass) finally slating them, MS deserve it.
A) what ol' Mr. Thurrott has to say about it or
B) what it looks like at pre-beta 2 stage
then you may have other problems that Vista sadly will not solve.
THINK FOR YOURSELF.
It's like movie reviews, who really cares what an overweight, unhappy shmuk thinks about a movie?
Ummm, I know which one is the topmost window! the only one with the red close button! :s not that hard....
And does it matter which window is my top most, i mean common. Give me one benifit of knowing hey the window on the left is the topmost window...
Just check the controlbox of any window. The one who's close button is red is the avtive window.
Aint that hard.
-Spenser
Paul's right. Although MS might pull it off in the end and really impress us, it isn't looking very good from what we see right now.
I disable it but still the security centre thing still bothers you, and I turned off notifications and it still annoys you. This is one of the reasons why I won't switch right away, thats if it annoys you with the notifications after disablig it. I know what programs to open and close, and I think a experience account should be made for us users who know whats bad from good.
I installed it last night and I was extremely disappointed. I realise it is only a beta, but they are going to have a real hard time convincing people that they are so stupid that they need to use Vista to protect themselves from the internet and windows, because we all know how dumb we are, and we need Microsoft protection. Heck, I couldnt even access my own data on the D drive because I needed to be protected from it
That is the impression I got. In my mind, security should be nearly invisible to the user, but at the same time it should work. The popup every time you want to do something is both annoying and rediculous. I am sure it will be impossible to turn off too.
I just thought Vista is looking like a whole lot of GUI fluff. Sure there are some *interesting* new features included, but nothing that will have me running for the shops at midnight on launch night.
It is more aimed at the windows blinds crowd if you ask me. For all the rest of us who use windows simply as a platform to access our applications and things like the internet... we will probably get so frustrated that we would probably stay on XP till there are no longer any drivers or updates.
Hypocrite?
no one wants to use botched up Vista really! not me!
This time MS has given a huge incentive to its loyal customer base to go explore and learn Linux!
Just waiting for Ubuntu 6.10 to start migrating my stuff over
oh well last 10 years with MS were good! thanks MS anyway hope to see you again 5 years down the line when u get Vienna out!
Let's get REAL here. Let's for a moment do two things:
1.) Gently push Vista over to the side. Not for good, just for the purposes of this notion I'm about to launch at you.
2.) Beside Vista, which is the OS you've been hoping for like a litle kid at Christmas (and then squeezing the carefully-wrapped package thinking it might be . . . underwear after all), lol, so beside Vista, put OS X running on an Intel-based mac (perhaps a nicely expandable PowerMac that is due out soon with Intel power) with Boot Camp.
I'm not saying you should definitely choose one over the other. All I want to do is put them both out there on the table for you. Just think about OS X Tiger (and more importantly Leopard with Boot Camp) - just give it some consideration. Because truly, OS X really hasn't had all these problems. It hasn't caused endless questions followed by disappointments. Mac users have been happily using high-end features In OS X for over a year now. No gnashing of teeth, no worrying. Spotlight, Dashboard, Expose. All in a very slick, well-constructed package. All the good stuff - MS Office, Quicken, Adobe Creative Suite, Messenger, Firefox, and alot more (see for yourself), all the apps you know and love, are out there for the mac. And this mac is now an Intel machine.
Stick with XP and Vista if you like. Vista will indeed be better than XP. But is it good enough to make you ignore the other possibilities? Just give the "other" OS (which can be more familiar than you think) some due consideration.
Who knows, in the very-near future you might be running OS X Tiger or Leopard on an Intel Mac, and playing games in Windows. All on the same beautifully-designed computer.
Just think about it.
OS X really hasn't had all these problems.
I have to disagree with you there... the first release of OS X was met with major disappointment, people were experiencing all kinds of performance issues with it and application compatibility meant using 'Classic'. It was not until the 3rd revision, Panther, that everyone was truly happy.
Panther was only a revision ago, introducing Exposé, along with other OSX 'modern' features; 10.1 and 10.2 were for those upgrading and not really switching, making the system usable. 10.1 vs OS9 is what Vista vs XP should be, and Vista doesn't come close!!!
Cal
I think Microsoft has first to "improve" XP, and after that, think of new (useful) features.
Well said! Instead of being the naysayer to Microsoft with a Beta product, look at the big picture.