Last week I got a copy of Vista Business edition through my MSDN Academic Alliance account at Georgia Tech. Obviously, I was compelled to install it and test it out. I was able to successfully get a dual-boot OS X and Vista setup working so I bring to you today, The Vista Challenge. I will be using Vista for an entire day and will see if I can do so without booting into OS X. I will be chronicling my experience and challenges, so be sure to keep coming back for updates.
Disclaimer: This post might be considered biased by some. I do have a shirt that says “I visited the [Apple] mothership.”
The Timeline
2:20 PM Just woke up.
2:34 PM First boot. I’ve been waiting a while for all these default gadgets to load up. I find it funny that the “Feed Headlines” gadget only lets you choose between 3 Microsoft feeds.
2:35 PM Feeling triumphant as I learned how to disable the Windows sidebar.
2:45 PM The time is off and unlike OS X, Vista doesn’t automatically sync the time online, it has to wait until it’s scheduled to do so – ~once a day.
3:03 PM The sound doesn’t work even with all the drivers Vista has. I’ve been eying my iPod across the room for the last few minutes.
3:10 PM Just installed Flash, Firefox & WinSCP and learned of the annoying “need your permission” security feature that grays out the rest of the screen and doesn’t let you do anything until you respond to the dialog.
3:24 PM I really like the Snipping Tool that comes with Vista. However, it can’t do timed screenshots.
3:30 PM Reading Chris Pirillo’s article about Vista tweaks.
4:21 PM I agree with what David Pogue says in the New York Times. Vista does have some fancy graphics – tons of transparency, a 3D window flipper (which, IMO is not as useful as Expose), etc – but the rest is annoying clutter. I’ve found Vista confusing and many of its features could have been implemented in a simpler way.
4:27 PM Number 3 on PC World’s Windows Vista: 15 Reasons to Switch is particularly fascinating. Just hover over a window in the taskbar and a live thumbnail of that window will appear. Live as in live – if you have a word processor thumbnail, you’ll actually see the cursor blink. If you’re watching a movie, the movie will be playing. Unfortunately, it doesn’t seem to do that with YouTube or other flash videos. After a reboot it does display flash videos in real time as well.
4:37 PM Installing Google Talk, Gaim 2.0.0 Beta 6 and Joost.
4:39 PM Joost gave me an error and won’t run in Vista, darn.
4:44 PM Sound Works! No idea why but it just started working on the iMac. I am very happy. Time to install iTunes and listen to my roommates’ music and/or iTunes radio.
4:58 PM Playing around with Windows Media Player and URGE. “Meh” comes to mind.
5:08 PM Reading up on BitLocker – the drive encryption that comes with Vista Ultimate. I have no need for BitLocker as I plan on loading up Vista through Parallels via Boot Camp so I can’t encrypt it. Unfortunately, the current release of Parallels can’t access Vista through Boot Camp.
5:19 PM I found a workaround for getting Joost to run on Vista.
7:21 PM Starting to have Textmate withdrawal symptoms. What do Windows coders use as their text editor – Notepad++?
7:24 PM Just tried to play “The Illusionist” DVD which I picked up from Best Buy today. Windows Media Player 11 doesn’t like it.
7:30 PM The Ribbons screensaver reminds me of the default OS X screensaver a lot…
7:46 PM DVD is chugging along nicely in VLC player.
8:09 PM Setting up newsgroup and email access for my school accounts in Thunderbird. Noticed there was a new assignment for a class and downloaded the associated .doc file. Downloading OpenOffice.org Writer so I can open the .doc file.
9:11 PM First application freeze. Vista makes the foreground of the frozen application white, pretty neat effect. Ironically, the frozen application was Firefox and it occurred as I launched Microsoft’s Small Business Resources site.
9:23 PM I found the need to print out a homework assignment and had to add my HP Laserjet printer in Vista. I began by installing it via the Control Panel with the built-in drivers Vista has. It “installed” but nothing happened when I tried to print a test page or the document. I deleted that printer and tried to reinstall it, but this time with the drivers from HP’s website. No go. So, is Vista’s corporate slogan now “Vista: Printers are overrated”?
9:49 PM I don’t have Photoshop installed so I’ve been using SnipShot for basic cropping and image manipulation, then I discovered that Windows Photo Gallery can do that too.
9:51 PM I’ve become fond of the iTunes controller in the taskbar. OS X needs something like this. There are add-ons like Menuet, but I feel it should be built-in.
11:39 PM About to head back to OS X to get some coding done; I don’t think I can do without Textmate and Transmit, but that’s just me.
Final Thoughts
Vista is a substantial improvement over XP. If you’re currently running XP and want to experience a more productive (file tagging, 3D window flipper, search boxes in just about every window and a revamped explorer) operating system you’ll no doubt want to give Vista a try. Now, I will say this. If you aren’t running a respectably beefy computer Vista will seem slow; very slow at times. You can always disable some of the Aero graphics effects though.
For example, Vista can benchmark your computer and give you a performance index. My 2.16GHz Core 2 Duo iMac with 256MB Nvidia 7300GT (low-end) graphics scored a 4.7. To give you some context, Microsoft recommends scores of 2.0 for office productivity needs, with scores of 3.0 and higher optimal for graphics-intensive applications, gaming and media center usage (which comes with Vista Ultimate).
Laptop users will enjoy Vista’s enhanced features for mobile systems with redesigned sleep and standby modes.
Microsoft devoted a lot of time and attention to security and user safety in Vista; that’s obvious with Windows Defender and Windows Security Center. Features like these for the casual user will get me to put Vista on my parents’ computer and both of my sisters’ computers. However, some of the security precautions become annoying for advanced users – but they’re advanced enough to know how to disable them.
So I’ve described some of the better parts of Vista, but inevitably there are things I don’t like about Vista. The Explorer just isn’t the same. The main folder navigation takes the backseat while “Favorite Links” take up some space on the top. I would rather have an uninhibited view of my folders without having to scroll much.
Next up, the start menu doesn’t sit well with me. Similar to the folders in Explorer, your programs are now confined to a scrollable area instead of expanding out. Oh and I forgot to mention, the wireless connection manager is much nicer. Microsoft made it blatantly simple and easy to use.
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Ah, Microsoft. When will they learn?
So how is the overall feel compared to Windows XP, is it better, worse or just different? And did you manage the entire day without OS X? ;)
I just installed Vista Home Premium 64bit yesterday as a dual boot with my existing XP installation. The sidebar is irritating and I turned it off. However, the feeds can be altered by opening Internet Explorer and turning on the feeds toolbar (ctrl-shift-j). Not brilliantly easy to find!
As for task switching, Windows-key+tab which flips the windows is quite handy if you just use the keyboard rather than the icon to do it, but what I’ve discovered to be a better faster way is to press the middle mouse button (do you have one? ;) ) to get a set of live thumbnails to pick from.
I haven’t had any real problems so far, Joost doesn’t work but it is a beta so can be forgiven.
@Stefan – the day is still going on. =) The feel is rather different. An XP user will be confused for the first week. I think Vista is better than XP but some of the graphics are overkill and cause clutter.
@publicenergy – thanks for letting me know about the feeds thing. I’m not using IE7 so I had no clue.
I don’t use IE7 either (bleugh!) just found them in there when I was hunting.
Paul,
Totally jealous.
About joost, not vista. Duh!
Are you running this via Boot Camp or Parallels right now?
Paul,
>I find it funny that the “Feed Headlines†gadget
This is because it draws the feeds from those registered in IE and thus the global pool. You can register to a system event feed if you wanna go overboard :) . Oh you can set those to email you too…
Kindly review the Meeting Space feature. I haven’t found another laptop owner with Vista to test it ever since beta 2. It’s itching me as hell.
Be sure to turn off the user access control, search for uac in the control panel search field. Setting up a computer is a pretty pathetic experience otherwise.
Cool report. I have already installed Vista in Parallels. But the graphical enhancements are no-existent there. Hopefully Parallels will add better gfx support soon. Currently it is just SVGA which means nearly no visual effects.
BTW: Can you send me an invitation to joost. I have read this is possible for people which are already users. Thanks :)
@Derek – Boot Camp!
@Paul: How have you done this – with bootcamp. It is not officially supported – is it. Have you used some form of hack or tutorial which you can share. Thanks.
@Sebastian – It’s funny because I didn’t do anything special. I just ran Boot Camp like I was going to install XP. When the Vista installer asked me what partition to use I just selected the one that Boot Camp made and it worked fine. Before I did all of that though, I cloned my OS X hard drive just in case. (with SuperDuper)
@Paul. Thanks. Mhh, interesting. I remember that I have read somewhere that there are problems regarding the dual-booting after installing Vista. Maybe this is already fixes in recent Vista/Bootcamp combinations. Do you have already booted again OS X?
Just for interest: How much space have you reserved for your Vista installation? I am a bit limited on my newly bought MacBook HDD. I hope 20 GB are OK. What do you think?
@Sebastian – Yes, I have booted into OS X before to make sure that it still works. =) I gave Vista 77GB but I’m on a 250GB hard drive. I think 20GB should be fine. I’m using about 12GB now with just the basics installed – Firefox, Thunderbird, etcetera.
I personally use Notepad++, but only because it’s probably the only decent [free] text editor around. But it’s no comparison with Textmate, which is what I miss most when using Windows.
I use Programmer’s Notepad (http://pnotepad.org/) which, when correctly configured, can almost be compared to TextMate ;)
Thats very biased.
Windows Vista has a lot of positives. You must focus on those as well.
To be fair – Vista is a lot better than previous versions of Windows.
Is it fast?
I will probably do this when I buy a bigger internal hard drive for my Macbook. I only have 12gb free right now..
Yeah, this article is almost comedic. Totally biased.
Paul, you should give Picasa a try if you haven’t already tried it (I bet you have).
Paul, you’re using the goofiest software around on Windows.
For a TextMate competitor, use Crimson Editor (http://www.crimsoneditor.com/) and change a couple settings to make it look nice.
WinSCP is the perfect SFTP program, surprised you knew about that one.
Gaim? That didn’t really make sense. Just use AIM 5.7 and you’ll be fine.
VLC? Why? Especially for DVDs. Just use Windows Media Player. If it doesn’t work, give Windows Update a try.
OpenOffice? Sheesh.
Adding a printer? Try using the CD that came with the printer, or the manufacturer’s website.
Feeling sluggish? Pop in a thumbdrive for added RAM.
Don’t run away from the operating system because it’s not exactly like Mac OS X, and when it is you bash it for stealing ideas. Stay with Mac OS X or be a real computer user and use both. No need to fret =)
Additional note about playing DVDs in Windows Media Player: http://www.microsoft.com/windows/windowsmedia/player/plugins.aspx#DVDDecoder
Paul, you do realize that the Itunes controller in the task bar was available on XP, right?
@Kyle – yeah, I’m aware of that. Just commenting on it as I don’t use Windows regularly.
@Don – Gaim is awesome! No ads like AIM has either. Thanks for the DVD Decoder link. I can’t believe it doesn’t come with one installed..
Windows is my main system and I’m surprised it doesn’t as well.
@Don, It would be penable under fair competition law for MS to bundle such software with the OS.
Then why is Mac OS X able to do it?
@KCorax – I launched Meeting Space. It seems like a cool, business-minded application but I don’t know another Vista owner to test it out with.. at the moment at least.
The only thing that I wish the iTunes controller had was a little screen telling what song you’re on or something i’d use it a lot more if it had that. Ugh, I wonder if Vista will work with my OLD school printer… Something I might have to look into before making the switch.
Firefox have a number of open issues with their 2.x releases with Vista which should hopefully be addressed in the next release. Regardless of the issues they have listed, I haven’t managed to break it yet!
For a text editor I use TopStyle. The Lite version could well be enough for most people. You could do worse that browse NoNags for free editors as well.
As far as making sure hardware works with Vista or not, if you already run a version of Windows, you can run the Upgrade Advisor – I did that prior to upgrade which told me the difference between versions, which software I had that might need updating and which hardware drivers I would have to collect from the manufacturer (only one, for my scanner).
The Media Centre is available in Home Premium as well.
Some good things I’ve noticed since upgrading from XP:-
* The resume time from a power save shutdown is near instant – I’m very impressed with that.
* Games seem to run better – probably due to DirectX 10
* The ability to type on the start menu speeds things up so much – hitting ctrl-escape or pressing the windows key and start typing the name of the program you’re looking for and the list filters and just press enter – it also list matching files. I’m a keyboard junkie though – if I’m typing and I can do things without resorting to the mouse I will do.
I’d say overall, if you run XP, use the tool to test your upgrade suitability and if you get the green light do it.
A thing that annoys me in Vista is it’s overprotectiveness, e.g. if you want to delete a file!
If you like The Illusionist, I can recommend The Prestige!
@Don, They can do it for the same reason they can bundle export to pdf as a printer while ms faced monopoly accusations when they tried to do that in office.
We Windows guys use Notepad++, Textpad, jEdit, and Eclipse. I’m sure there’s some guys who use Visual Studio, but that’s too heavy for me.
Nice article, awesome read! :)
If only Os X would run as stable and recognize just as many hardware when running in virtual mode. ;-)
But, my question is… WHY?!
The live thumbnails is working perfect for youtube and flash videos too. Donno why its not working for you.
why… I can only imagine the answer is: “because the public wants to know…” :) or some such.
and that cartoon is very funny. :)
Hey Paul, I found a Windows Textmate wannabe clone called Intype. It’s still in alpha and missing a lot but check it out.
(via Marko)
Jim, thanks for the find. This looks very promising!
A Day with vista comments:
2:34: just subscribe to the feed in IE and they show up automatically in the sidebar gadget. Simple FIX..
7:21: There are many IDEs out there for free some with intellisense..
7:24: You must not have installed home premium or vista ultimate because those versions COME with a DVD decoder. Business like XP Pro doesn’t. Nor does home basic.
9:23 Works for me, you said you are running vista using Parallels maybe that’s the problem
Try SmartFTP for your FTP client (www.smartftp.com)
Also try SharpDevelop for an IDE (http://www.icsharpcode.net/OpenSource/SD/)
Could I get a joost invite? ;-)
The only reason I’m on Vista is because Windows is more popular here (in the Philippines). When I graduate from high school, my ‘rents will hopefully buy me a new lappy (MacBook Pro, hopefully; my Acer TravelMate 6291’s okay, but Apple’s just better), and I’m switching to Leopard.ü