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Vista is new generation Windows operating system.

While this assertion is true, it is a complete bullshit at the same time. Windows Vista is basically Windows XP with some up-to-date applications and changes here or there.

What is good in Vista

You get

• IE7
• WMP11
• Windows Defender
• .Net Framework 3

right out of the box. These applications do not come with Windows XP and there will never be a service pack containing these apps. You still can install all of them on XP if you wish though.

There are many more apps that come bundled with the OS. I am just afraid I’ll never use them. E.g.: Windows Calendar, Windows Contacts, Windows Mail. On the other hand there some nice apps too. Reliability and Performance Monitor is useful for instance. I use Calc all the time. Paint is a go for me (they changed the icons, finally).

IE7 is particularly good browser. It seems to be swift and responsive. And now you can open Internet Oprions even if you are downloading some web page and not have to wait until it is completely loaded. IE7 has tabs and can be customized by plugins. IE7Pro is a reputable plugin everyone needs to have. If for nothing else than mouse gestures. I cannot live without these since Opera introduced them.

WMP11 is a decent media player. It is not revolutionary different or new compared to previous WMP version but at least it is not ugly. If you right-click a folder with some music you can add to a playlist. But this works only sometimes. This should be improved.

There is also this search box everywhere that enables you to search for files. I like it in Control Panel where I use it heavily because the controls were changed again.

Windows Update is now a standalone application and seems to work somewhat more predictable.

What is bad in Vista

You can see that some features were completely overhauled and redesinged in this OS. But still some stuff has been untouched since Windows 95 or so. Number 1 on my list is a proof of this.

1. File manupulation is broken
   This is a problem that Windows has been having forever. You grab a folder, drag it somewhere in order copy the stuff and watch the endless “Prepare copy” dialog. In Vista this was even bigger problem in the begining because they messed with this copying and made it worse instead fixing it. Some fixes were released that address the issue but still to no avail for some.
2. Documents, Pictures, Favorites and other pretty unusable folders
   Microsoft decided that we need more folders for more stuff. So they introduced Contacts, Saved Games and Searches. I find these folders pretty unusuable. In XP they were in Documents at least but now they moved they them one level up and there is like 10 of them. I never really use them except for Pictures which for some reason works for me. I may change my attitude but now I don’t like these folders.
3. Windows File Sharing is not working as advertised
   I really have bad experience with File Sharing in Windows. Discovering the peers in a wokrgroup was improved. They added the progress bar as well. That is nice but it does not show the progress correctly in the first place, so it is still pretty annoying. You can still make Explorer hang easily when accessing some shared resource. I have to say that this may work better with Windows Server 2008 but I am personally years away from getting in touch with that anyway.
4. Unnecessary changes
   They changed Control Panel again. They changed right-click Propeties on the Desktop to Personalize for no reason. What happened to Defrag is just unbelievable.

Final thoughts

Overall Vista is a good Windows experience. It is XP with all the preinstalled programs you’d have to install anyway on XP. Vista proved to be quite stable on my configuration although I saw some BSODs (during boot mostly). Some bad stuff that comes with Vista comes with XP as well. The good stuff probably doesn’t make Vista magnificently better over XP but still you can feel the difference.