The Windows Vista (Longhorn) Chronicles...

I just received and installed Windows Vista Beta 1 (Build 5112). I'm going to publish my experiences (good and bad) here, and I encourage other beta testers to do the same. Before I begin, I have to throw this one out for Kanzen, he will love it...

Windows Vista has a very distinct OS X'ish feel to it.

The install went very smoothly, although it seemed much longer than a typical XP install. Experienced XP installers will notice a definite difference with the install interface. Luckily, almost all of my laptop drivers were found and installed automatically. I did have to go to Acer's web site and download and install a few drivers such as Gigabit Ethernet and Sound manually but they worked fine. I had to immediately go in and disable the standard P2P program that is turned on by default. So much for their most secure OS yet.

One thing that WBW surfers will immediately notice in Internet Explorer 7 is that handy little shortcut/popup that appears in the corner of a picture to quickly save it is GONE! I'm bummed. I actually liked that feature.

In a move to catch up with FireFox, Safari, etc., IE7 has added tabbed browsing. While it is nothing new, they do have a little shortcut next to each tab that, with a quick click, will open a new tab. I don't recall at this moment if FireFox or Safari have that feature. It's pretty handy so far.

Yahoo Messenger installs with no problems, but is pretty useless since your buddy list is completely invisible. Your contacts are there, and if you click in a blank area in your list, will open the Buddy that is there, but that ain't gonna work! Good thing I got sick of Yahoo Messenger a long time ago and began using GAIM. GAIM installs fine and runs perfectly. Go GAIM!

For the life of me I can't figure out how to search for a computer on the network by IP address. It's not in the usual search area. As a matter of fact, there's not much in the search area anymore. I'm sure I'll find it, but it's really late, and I'm spinning. The chronicles will continue tomorrow...

I'm behind the times here, but is Vista the newest OS coming out by Microsoft? When will it be released to the public?

I heard it's Vision, not Vista, altough it means exactly the same but

Its Windows Vista, the code name is Longhorn. Don't expect it until late 2006, and still missing a lot of promised technologies like WinFS. However one thing you can expect for sure is DRM all over the Vista OS. Say goodbye to your rights.

Anyways, its not surprising M$ has stolen another thing from OS X, they steal from everyone, then patent it. But by the time Vista is out OS X users will be on 10.5, another three years ahead of Vista.

http://news.com.com/Hollywood%2C+Microsoft+align+on+new+Windows/2100-1025_3-5844393.html?tag=nefd.lede

yeah and what else is new.....

Ive had Vista sitting here on disk for a while and havent got round to playing with it , I guess Im just sick to death of trying new stuff .. might be old age

but hey after I have moved and finished my end of term exams might use it and see how it goes , it`s just I never trust bloody Gates he seems to be a necessary evil.

best of luck playing with it

The funny thing is that there is a company called Vista and... they sell windows
http://www.vistawindows.com

hows it run compared to linux or mac?

Once it's booted it's pretty snappy. it's the booting up and shutting down part that are extremely slow at this point. But it's a beta so that may not be an indication of it's future performance. Transitions are quick and smooth. Pretty impressed so far. I noticed another feature they snagged from OS X... you can turn on a feature that allows you to run in a regular user mode most of the time and input the administrator username and password only when necessary to make admin changes.

Two Bugs I Found...

I switched from a dynamic ip address to a static to test some network connections and the static wouldn't take until i rebooted. It was reminiscent of Windows 98.

Bluetooth support seems shotty, at best. It installs the Bluetooth device drivers and programs fine, but won't add any of my Bluetooth devices. Locks up my system every time I try to add something.

Aesthetically, it's much more pleasing than Windows XP. A lot of three dimensional graphics/icons, nice shading, transparent window borders, etc.

Windows XP theme = Fisher Price theme

how do i get a legal beta version

Thanks mystery man for your infos so far. I have the disk here as well and will try it in the next few weeks. Currently I'm still busy trying to get something done with Apple's Xcode 2.0.

Quote:

Originally posted by mystery_man143

Aesthetically, it's much more pleasing than Windows XP. A lot of three dimensional graphics/icons, nice shading, transparent window borders, etc.

Thats great to hear. I never liked and never used the XP look except if I had to. I still prefer the old Windows 95 look that reminds to the straight and functional Nextstep look it was copied from.

Quote:

Originally posted by Kanzen

However one thing you can expect for sure is DRM all over the Vista OS. Say goodbye to your rights.

You mean as in the iTMS or the x86 Mac OS X that requires a TPM chip?

iTune's FairPlay only affects the music you buy through the iTunes Music Store. And OS X right now doesn't require a TPM chip, its been successfully run on AMD machines. And, all the TPM is meant to do is make sure OS X only runs on, but not what it runs... so far.

Vista is a different matter. M$ wants near total control of what you can and cannot do with your machine with Vista.

http://www.boingboing.net/2005/08/04/windows_vista_demand.html
http://www.itnews.com.au/newsstory.aspx?CIaNID=19562&r=rss
http://www.dashes.com/anil/stuff/doctorow-drm-ms.html
http://www.theinquirer.net/?article=25169
http://www.archive.org/details/DeclanCory

Quote:

Originally posted by Magdrop

how do i get a legal beta version

There are only a couple of ways that I know of to "legally" get a copy of Vista/Longhorn. One is to be invited as an official Beta Tester by Microsoft. I believe this is usually reserved for large corporations that have a large Windows deployment already in place. The other way is to be a member of Microsoft's Developers Network (which is how I got it). This is usually how programmers, etc. are able to make sure their software works with a new OS before it comes out. There are different levels of membership and I believe mine is something like $1,000 per year.