The Dark Side of Windows Vista RC1

By Randolph
in The Fast Ring (Insider Previews)

 Share

Recommended Posts

Grand Master

Randolph

Posted
Posted
In a recent showcase, I highlighted five things I really like about Windows Vista. That's a cute list, and certainly, I could easily come up with another 5, or 10, or 20. And you know, maybe I'll do just that. But first, I'd like to discuss a number of problems I have with Windows Vista. This, to be honest, is a long list. That doesn't mean that Windows Vista is a waste of time, or a product to be reviled. As a friend once noted, "it's good enough to criticize." Well, maybe. It certainly deserves to be criticized.

http://www.winsupersite.com/showcase/winvista_rc1_worst.asp

:no:

Link to comment
https://www.neowin.net/forum/topic/493003-the-dark-side-of-windows-vista-rc1/
Share on other sites
Grand Master

oldaccount1

Posted
Posted

Very good read, and I have to say that to me personally the user interface is what makes or breaks the OS when it comes to everyday use, so far Vista has taken a step back from Windows XP in that perspective.

It's growing on me. And I've only played with an old pre-beta-2 build back in the day. It looks great from the screens.

Experienced

macro

Posted
Posted

It's growing on me. And I've only played with an old pre-beta-2 build back in the day. It looks great from the screens.

Did you read that though? The button placement, removal of buttons and menus and even inconsistency for menus across the system, even Windows XP didn't have that. They don't know what direction they are trying to bring the UI in, so it's all over the place. Look at ribbons on Office as well. I haven't used Vista for more than half an hour so I don't know first hand how bad it is myself, but the nice thing about Windows is that at least you can customize it for yourself in some ways. The glass looks clean and nice in some parts, the UI is just not there though :\

Veteran

Boeing 787

Posted
Posted

Most people will find Vista useless as an upgrade to Windows XP. It eats more memory and requires a decent video card to get Aero to work. It's sort of the deluxe version of Windows XP with a hefty price tag.

Most of the so called features are already being done by third party software. A few things are pretty good though like the image based install.

Grand Master

Tech_Dude_5000

Posted
Posted
And take User Account Control (UAC), please. No seriously, please take it. And kill it. And stomp on its dead body. And then hang it on a flag pole as a warning to others.

:huh: :laugh:

I love when Paul makes his childish terms...

may be Paul should read this:

https://www.neowin.net/forum/index.php?showtopic=492324

;)

Veteran

reactionary007

Posted
Posted

Most people will find Vista useless as an upgrade to Windows XP. It eats more memory and requires a decent video card to get Aero to work. It's sort of the deluxe version of Windows XP with a hefty price tag.

unfortunately you'll have to upgrade to it at some point no matter what. i like xp better - but eventually they'll start releasing updates that only run on Vista... maybe IE 9 or WMP 13

try installing windows 2000 today and see how much great stuff you can't even install on it.... wish i could run xp for another 5 years!

Grand Master

Tech_Dude_5000

Posted
Posted

unfortunately you'll have to upgrade to it at some point no matter what. i like xp better - but eventually they'll start releasing updates that only run on Vista... maybe IE 9 or WMP 13

try installing windows 2000 today and see how much great stuff you can't even install on it.... wish i could run xp for another 5 years!

Why not? there are people that still use 98? :|

Just upgrade to XP SP3 when it comes out. It should come out around the same time Vista SP1 comes out and should feature WinFS IE7, Media player 11 and a few other apps...

may be even SP4. witch may feature all the updates in Vista SP2. but by that time, we will be preparing for vienna and XP extended surport will die a year later ;)

Veteran

Boeing 787

Posted
Posted

Did you read that though? The button placement, removal of buttons and menus and even inconsistency for menus across the system, even Windows XP didn't have that. They don't know what direction they are trying to bring the UI in, so it's all over the place. Look at ribbons on Office as well. I haven't used Vista for more than half an hour so I don't know first hand how bad it is myself, but the nice thing about Windows is that at least you can customize it for yourself in some ways. The glass looks clean and nice in some parts, the UI is just not there though :\

Office 2007 is rather beautiful to bad Vista isn't design as well and as thoroughly. Hell all I wanted Vista to bring where better dialog boxes and things that only could be done at the OS level. I have firefox as my browser and it is feature loaded. I have Directory Opus as my File Manager and it is feature loaded. The only thing that annoys me are the really poorly designed dialog boxes like open and save, browse for a folder and perhaps the worst is the icon dialog box.

Grand Master

Tech_Dude_5000

Posted
Posted

Both, they are both incredibly annoying and not the smoothest way to secure it don't you agree?

yep. The tip improved it a bit. you can X out or click ok or cancel and get back to your work more faster. and you can even go tasks while the UAC is up, but it still acts like pop ups in a web browser..

Experienced

macro

Posted
Posted

yep. The tip improved it a bit. you can X out or click ok or cancel and get back to your work more faster. and you can even go tasks while the UAC is up, but it still acts like pop ups in a web browser..

Well you know I hope they just implement lots of Paul's suggestions before it's final. I'm not in the position where I have to use it anyways so I don't care that much but it's just common sense stuff I think.

Mentor

franzon

Posted
Posted (edited)

ROFL at people that want to turn off UAC

this is one of the main things that make linux and OSX more secure than windows by default(not running as admin)

Paul Thurrott is ignorant, I don't like his thoughts.

UAC is the best Vista feature, I love the UAC. UAC is not annoying. UAC allows you to run as Standard user with the possibility to make the administrative tasks when you want. UAC also protects you from trojans want to start administrative tasks without your knowledge and so UAC will prompt you and save your life!

If you think UAC annoying you, this means:

. you're doing a lot of unnecessary administrative tasks

. you're using a lot of incompatibility programs

. you don't understand the UAC and runas capabilities in Vista i.e. you're simple ignorant like Paul Thurrott

Paul Thurrott is wondering why the beta2 was bad and why Microsoft didn't release immediately a good build like the RC1, and so Paul is ignorant because he doesn't understand what a beta program means!

Edited by franzon
Grand Master

Dashel

Posted
Posted

Good article. Especially about UAC and photo importing.

Want to know what will make it secure? A functional user mode that n00bs can be put in. I don't have security 'issues' with my PC. I never have going back to the venerable 95B so please, stop blipping my screen every 15 minutes.

Grand Master

HawkMan

Posted
Posted

I don't entirely agree with what he wants, like gettign rid of UAC, what he wants is to get back to XP where any program can do anything, and you run in admin mode. that's just not good.

sure UAC canbe annoying, it is. BUT IT IS NECESSARY! This is the reason why microsoft delayed behidn so many others in adding in security like this, but we are now in a time where some user comforts need to be sacrificed for security.

And the back buttons, while they are a bit weird, I actually understand the rationale behidn putting them up there.

and keyboard shortcuts... All the computer users I know of that are advanced enough to use them have mice with back and forward buttons and use these instead. :p

Grand Master

Rudy

Posted
Posted

the sidebar is nothing compared to what it used to be in the longhorn beta. back when you could include the whole taskbar in the sidebar therefore moving the whole notification area to the side but that's not possible anymore :(

that was the main feature i was looking forward to

Experienced

psyko_x

Posted
Posted

Paul Thurrott is ignorant, I don't like his thoughts.

UAC is the best Vista feature, I love the UAC. UAC is not annoying. UAC allows you to run as Standard user with the possibility to make the administrative tasks when you want. UAC also protects you from trojans want to start administrative tasks without your knowledge and so UAC will prompt you and save your life!

If you think UAC annoying you, this means:

. you're doing a lot of unnecessary administrative tasks

. you're using a lot of incompatibility programs

. you don't understand the UAC and runas capabilities in Vista i.e. you're simple ignorant like Paul Thurrott

UAC is fine but it's not perfect. There are times when it really does get in the way. I can't stand having that notification window pop and and seeing my screen go dark when I'm simply deleting a picture from my non-windows partition. It's my file and if I want to delete it don't harass me with "are you reeeally sure you want to delete your picture??"

As for the other issues in the article, I guess they are valid. I personally don't feel nearly as strong about them as he does but whatever.

Mentor

franzon

Posted
Posted (edited)

UAC is fine but it's not perfect. There are times when it really does get in the way. I can't stand having that notification window pop and and seeing my screen go dark when I'm simply deleting a picture from my non-windows partition. It's my file and if I want to delete it don't harass me with "are you reeeally sure you want to delete your picture??"

Do you spend your life to delete files every day and at every hour? No, so you have just only to click on the UAC prompt in order to allow the action, and this doesn't happen often because you don't delete files at every hour of the day! So I don't think this is annoying.

And do you understand what happens when a program try to delete these files without your knowledge if you hadn't the UAC? You'll lose the files and you'll cry just like when you're using windows xp as administrator

Edited by franzon
This topic is now closed to further replies.
 Share
Go to topic listing

  • Recently Browsing   0 members

    • No registered users viewing this page.

  • Posts

    • An actual cosmic "Eye of Sauron" had been looking straight at us all along

      By +Edouard · Posted

      @Sayan...I have defended you at various points as I hope you know. This headline however is utter trash...shame on you sir!
    • An actual cosmic "Eye of Sauron" had been looking straight at us all along

      By hellowalkman · Posted

      An actual cosmic "Eye of Sauron" had been looking straight at us all along by Sayan Sen Image by Kovin P. Vasquez via Pexels | Not representative An international team of researchers has solved a long-standing mystery surrounding a distant blazar known as PKS 1424+240, helping explain why it produces some of the brightest high-energy gamma rays and cosmic neutrinos ever observed despite appearing to have a relatively slow-moving jet. The findings were published on June 6 in Astronomy & Astrophysics Letters. The study addresses a broader challenge in astrophysics: understanding how extreme cosmic objects accelerate particles to very high energies and produce very high-energy (VHE) photons and neutrinos. PKS 1424+240 is located billions of light-years from Earth. It has attracted attention for years because it is both a powerful source of VHE gamma rays and the brightest known neutrino-emitting blazar in the sky, according to observations by the IceCube Neutrino Observatory. It is also associated with one of the strongest peaks in IceCube's nine-year neutrino sky map A blazar is a type of active galactic nucleus powered by a supermassive black hole that pulls in surrounding matter and launches jets of plasma moving close to the speed of light. What makes blazars unique is their orientation. One of their jets points almost directly toward Earth, making them appear exceptionally bright across the electromagnetic spectrum and allowing scientists to study some of the most extreme physical processes in the Universe. The scientists exclaimed it's like the 'Eye of Sauron' in deep space. Usually, the brightest gamma-ray-emitting blazars are expected to have jets that appear to move very quickly. However, radio observations of PKS 1424+240 suggested that its jet was moving much more slowly, creating a contradiction that became part of a long-running problem known as the "Doppler factor crisis." To investigate, researchers analyzed 15 years of observations from the Very Long Baseline Array (VLBA), a network of 10 radio antennas spread across the continental United States, Hawaii and St. Croix. Using a technique called Very Long Baseline Interferometry (VLBI), astronomers combine signals from widely separated radio telescopes to create a virtual Earth-sized telescope capable of revealing extremely fine details. The team combined 42 polarization-sensitive radio images collected between 2009 and 2025, creating a much deeper and more detailed view of the jet than had previously been possible. The observations were carried out as part of MOJAVE (Monitoring Of Jets in Active galactic nuclei with VLBA Experiments), a long-running program that studies the brightness, polarization and magnetic field structures of jets produced by active galaxies. The project aims to better understand how activity near supermassive black holes is linked to high-energy radiation and neutrino emission. “When we reconstructed the image, it looked absolutely stunning,” said Yuri Kovalev, lead author of the study and Principal Investigator of the European Research Council-funded MuSES project at the Max Planck Institute for Radio Astronomy. “We have never seen anything quite like it — a near-perfect toroidal magnetic field with a jet, pointing straight at us.” The image revealed an unusual geometry. The researchers found that Earth lies almost directly in line with the jet, with a viewing angle of less than 0.6 degrees. In simple terms, astronomers are looking almost straight down the jet. This turned out to be the key to the mystery. Because the jet is aimed almost directly at Earth, a relativistic effect called Doppler boosting dramatically increases its apparent brightness. The study found that this effect boosts the emission by a factor of about 30 while also making the jet appear slower than it actually is. “This alignment causes a boost in brightness by a factor of 30 or more,” said Jack Livingston, a co-author at the Max Planck Institute for Radio Astronomy. “At the same time, the jet appears to move slowly due to projection effects — a classic optical illusion.” The nearly head-on view also gave scientists a rare look at the jet's magnetic field. Using polarized radio signals, they detected a clear toroidal, or doughnut-shaped, magnetic field component. The observations suggest the jet carries an electric current and that its magnetic field helps launch, shape and stabilize the flow of plasma. Researchers believe this magnetic structure may also play a key role in accelerating particles to energies high enough to produce both gamma rays and neutrinos. “Solving this puzzle confirms that active galactic nuclei with supermassive black holes are not only powerful accelerators of electrons, but also of protons — the origin of the observed high-energy neutrinos,” Kovalev said. The research was conducted under the MuSES (Multi-messenger Studies of Energetic Sources) project, which investigates how active galactic nuclei accelerate particles and generate different cosmic signals, including light and neutrinos. Scientists say understanding how protons are accelerated and linked to neutrino production remains one of the major unanswered questions in astrophysics. The findings help explain why some blazars can appear to have slow jets while still producing extremely bright high-energy emissions. More broadly, the study strengthens the link between relativistic jets, magnetic fields, gamma rays and high-energy neutrinos. Researchers say the results provide new clues about how some of the Universe's most powerful natural particle accelerators work and offer important insights for multimessenger astronomy, which combines different types of cosmic signals to study extreme events in space. Source: European Research Council, EDP Sciences This article was generated with some help from AI and reviewed by an editor. Under Section 107 of the Copyright Act 1976, this material is used for the purpose of news reporting. Fair use is a use permitted by copyright statute that might otherwise be infringing.
    • What browser do you prefer to use, and why?

      By AnotherITguy · Posted

      Edge
    • Classic Outlook vs New Outlook — Which one do you prefer and why?

      By AnotherITguy · Posted

      Gotenks98 is right... Outlook (new) is absolute trash. Doesn't Mozilla have an Enterprise Version of Firebird?
    • Microsoft Weekly: Surface Laptop Ultra, Windows 11 context menus, Build 2026 recap, and more

      By TarasBuria · Posted

      Microsoft Weekly: Surface Laptop Ultra, Windows 11 context menus, Build 2026 recap, and more by Taras Buria This week's news recap is here, with Microsoft announcing the new Surface Laptop Ultra, fresh chips from NVIDIA for Windows on ARM, a no-build week, fixes for Windows 11's context menus, gaming news, reviews, and more. Quick links: Windows 10 and 11 Windows Insider Program Updates are available Reviews are in Gaming news Great deals to check Windows 11 and Windows 10 Here, we talk about everything happening around Microsoft's latest operating system in the Stable channel and preview builds: new features, removed features, controversies, bugs, interesting findings, and more. And, of course, you may find a word or two about older versions. At Computex 2026, together with NVIDIA, Microsoft announced the Surface Laptop Ultra, its most powerful laptop to date, powered by NVIDIA's RTX Spark processor. Details about this computer are currently scarce, as Microsoft has only revealed certain parts of its specs. So far, we know that the computer has a 15-inch mini-LED display, a rich set of ports, a powerful processor, and all-day battery life. It also comes with a new wallpaper, which you can already download here in full resolution. The Surface Laptop Studio is not the only NVIDIA-powered Surface, which Microsoft unveiled this week. At Build 2026, the company also debuted the Surface RTX Spark Dev Box, an odd-shaped desktop with a 20-core NVIDIA Grace CPU and an NVIDIA Blackwell RTX GPU with 6,144 CUDA cores and fifth-generation Tensor Cores with FP4 precision, connected via the NVIDIA NVLink-C2C chip-to-chip interconnect for high performance. According to Microsoft, it can run models with up to 120 billion parameters locally without relying on cloud GPU infrastructure. These two new Surface devices are likely to cost quite a lot, and for those who need a more affordable device, Microsoft is preparing the next-gen Qualcomm-powered Surface Pro and Surface Laptop. This week, details about these two devices leaked in plenty of detail. Other announcements at Build 2026 include the following: Microsoft unveils new security tools for IT admins and developers building AI products Microsoft announces Scout, an OpenClaw-powered personal agent for enterprise customers Microsoft unveils MAI-Thinking-1 reasoning and MAI-Code-1 coding models Microsoft announced a new Windows 11 native command-line utility Microsoft unveils Majorana 2 quantum chip, accelerating commercial timeline to 2029 Microsoft believes that AI agents will eventually replace apps through Project Solara Microsoft introduces Web IQ, a Bing-powered search system built for AI agents Last week, Microsoft released a new Experimental build, which introduced a major Start menu upgrade. It now lets you toggle off specific parts of the menu without affecting other features, resize the menu, and hide additional UI elements. We published a closer look here, so if you want to know what Microsoft is cooking without enrolling in the Insider program and installing unstable builds, check it out. Speaking of new features, many users are very annoyed about the way Microsoft delivers them. Recently, a frustrated user shared their experience with gradual rollouts, and even Microsoft engineers admitted there is a flaw in the system that prevents new features from applying properly. One of those new features includes the ability to uninstall AI models in Windows 11 with a single click. Windows 11 is finally getting fixes for its slow context menus. Marcus Ash from Microsoft confirmed that the company is working on fixing Windows 11's context menus. Reworked context menus are going to be faster, simpler by default, and "configurable to what you use most." According to Marcus, Microsoft will share more details soon. Windows Insider Program Windows 11 preview builds, released last week, are now available for download as standalone ISO files. These days, Microsoft regularly pushes new images, allowing users to clean-install its recent Windows 11 preview builds faster and easier. If you want to try the latest Windows 11 features without jumping through the Windows Update hoops, get those new images here. Sadly, Microsoft did not release new Windows 11 preview builds this week. Come back next time. Updates are available This section covers software, firmware, and other notable updates (released and coming soon) delivering new features, security fixes, improvements, patches, and more from Microsoft and third parties. Microsoft is preparing new features for Teams. Later this month, the messenger will receive a new download manager with auto-dismissing notifications, reducing clutter and making the overall experience less annoying when dealing with downloads. Mozilla released Firefox 151.0.3, a new bug-fixing update for the browser. It is a small release, which fixes problems with pasting into text fields and the oversized VPN button on the toolbar. The update is now available for all users in the Release channel. Here are other updates and releases you may find interesting: VS Code 1.123 introduces massive upgrades for persistent AI developer workflows Microsoft OneDrive is getting a simple yet much-needed feature Microsoft faces heat after quietly blocking promised Office features on Apple systems Microsoft resumes forced Copilot app installation on some Windows PCs Browser vendors pen an open letter to Microsoft, saying "enough is enough" Here are the latest drivers and firmware updates released this week: AMD Radeon Software 26.6.1 with optimizations for F1 25: 2026 Season, World of Tanks: HEAT, and various bug fixes. Reviews are in Here is the hardware and software we reviewed this week Steven Parker dropped more mini PC reviews this week. GEEKOM Air12 2026 Edition is a low-power, affordable computer with an Intel Tiger Lake Pentium Gold processor, up to 16GB of memory, and 512GB of storage, costing just $349. It is light, quiet, energy efficient, and has modern ports on the front. However, the front-facing USB Type-C is data-only, and there are some quirks with the computer's memory, so check out the full review. The AMD RX 9070 GRE has been released worldwide, and we published a benchmark review comparing this powerful graphics card to the RX 9070 XT, 7800 XT, the NVIDIA RTX 5070, and RTX 4070. It has solid, balanced performance, plenty of RAM, and low temperatures, but watch out for mediocre ray tracing performance and not the best efficiency. Also, we reviewed the Cuktech 10 Ultra, a compact, high-power charger with four ports and a big display full of various stats. This tiny charger can pull nearly 120W and spread that power according to each connected device's needs. It also comes with a high-quality 240W cable, three power modes, and retractable prongs. The best part? It is quite affordable, just make sure you have an outlet placed in the right spot to benefit from the built-in display. On the gaming side Learn about upcoming game releases, Xbox rumors, new hardware, software updates, freebies, deals, discounts, and more. Do you remember the ASUS ROG Xbox Ally, Microsoft's first handheld console designed in partnership with ASUS? This week, ASUS revealed a new version of the device to celebrate twenty years of its Republic of Gamers brand. The new ROG Xbox Ally X20 features an OLED display, a transforming D-Pad, TMR sticks, and other changes. However, the chip inside the console is still the same. Forza Horizon 6 launched last month to critical acclaim, but the game will soon have a new rival made by those who used to work on Forza Horizon titles. Mike Brown from Maverick Games announced Clutch, an upcoming racing game with a story-driven campaign, deep car customization, and rich multiplayer. The game is coming to PC, Xbox Series X|S, and PlayStation 5 in Spring 2027. The next update for Minecraft now has a release date. This week, Mojang announced that Chaos Cubed will be available on June 16, 2026. In addition, Mojang published a teaser of the next Minecraft movie. A Minecraft Movie Squared has now been confirmed for a release somewhere in 2027. NVIDIA GeForce Now is getting 18 new games in June. Those include Jurassic World Evolution 3, Fatekeeper, GOALS, Gothic 1 Remake, NTE: Neverness to Everness, and more. If you are a Game Pass subscriber, you can also get new games soon: Persona 5 Royal, Starseeker: Astroneer Expeditions, and more are coming to the service this month. Sumer Game Fest 2026 happened this week, where we saw plenty of new games, including Alien Isolation 2, Final Fantasy VII Remake Part 3, Gen Atlas from the Shadow of the Colossus creator, a new Cuphead game in 8-bit style, a new expansion for Mafia: The Old Country, and more. Finally, here are this week's Weekend PC Game Deals, full of discounts and the latest freebies from the Epic Games Store. Other gaming news includes the following: God of War Laufey announced, introducing Kratos' wife as the new protagonist Ori studio's No Rest for the Wicked 1.0 release and console plans announced Microsoft launches Godot Sample to streamline Xbox PC game development on the engine Great deals to check Every week, we cover many deals on different hardware and software. The following discounts are still available, so check them out. You might find something you want or need. Samsung 990 PRO SSD 2TB NVMe - $389.99 | 39% off Sonos Sub 4 - Wireless Subwoofer - $759 | 16% off Logitech MX Creative Console - $159.99 | 20% off This link will take you to other issues of the Microsoft Weekly series. You can also support Neowin by registering for a free member account or subscribing for extra member benefits, along with an ad-free tier option.

  • Recent Achievements

    • One Month Later
      lamborghiniv10 earned a badge
      One Month Later
    • Week One Done
      lamborghiniv10 earned a badge
      Week One Done
    • Reacting Well
      X-No-file earned a badge
      Reacting Well
    • One Month Later
      pestcontrol46 earned a badge
      One Month Later
    • Week One Done
      pestcontrol46 earned a badge
      Week One Done

  • Popular Contributors

    1. 1
      +primortal
      511
    2. 2
      PsYcHoKiLLa
      273
    3. 3
      Skyfrog
      75
    4. 4
      +Edouard
      72
    5. 5
      FloatingFatMan
      68
    Show More

  • Tell a friend

    Love Neowin? Tell a friend!