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Windows Vista: The Features

microsoft.com — Official Microsoft Vista website provides in-depth look into Windows Vista, including a comprehensive feature list with screenshots. Excellent read.

Who dugg this? Made popular Jan 5, 2006

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  • IceUck, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4I'm a little skeptical. It looks like lots of eye-candy to me. Here's a short list of things I'd like to see in the next version of Windows:

    #1 - Don't Help Me

    Hey Microsoft, guess what? I KNOW WHAT I'M DOING, STOP HELPING ME! When I select less than the entire word, it's because I don't want the entire word. If you want to add a features that automatically extend my selection, change my capitalization, etc, fine, but provide one place for me to TURN IT ALL OFF. Nothing pisses me off more than having to fight with my computer.

    #2 - Provide better troubleshooting tools/procedures for networking problems. How many people have two or more computers at home running MS Windows where computer A can access shares on computer B, but not the other way around? Every time this happens, I try all kinds of different things, and nothing works. The most frustrating part of this is that there is no sense of "can I at least get this far?" It either works, or it doesn't. No indication as to whether the last thing you did made the situation better or worse.

    #3 - Fix the search feature

    At some point, someone at MS thought it'd be a good idea to only search Microsoft-approved file types (previously, if you told it to search *.snarfblat, then that's what it did). The result is that the search is pretty much useless. If it finds something, great. There may be more. We won't tell you. If it doesn't find something, that doesn't mean it's not there. Useless.

    #4 - What is this @#$% thing doing?

    The Task Manager is useful for viewing processor usage and some other metrics, but all too often I click on something like the Start Menu, and wait for several seconds for the damn thing to appear.

    WHAT COULD IT POSSIBLY BE THINKING ABOUT? Everything on my start menu is local to my computer. Task Manager shows almost no processor usage, the disk light isn't flashing, so what the hell is taking so long? Is it bouncing a signal off of a satellite and waiting for the all-clear before I can see my Start Menu?

    I'm sure that there is a good explanation, but I sure can't figure out what's adding the 2-second delay to everything I do. Maybe it's the lousy driver that came with some piece of hardware. Maybe my machine is trying to discover network drives or printers.

    Bottom line: Unless you're a seriously devoted Microsoft IT type, you have no real way to identify and deal with the source of the problem.

    #5 - Turn "Hide File Extension" Off By Default

    This one is almost as dangerous as the WMF exploit, and it's always the first setting I turn off after installing Windows. I can't understand why this hasn't been addressed in the last three releases of Windows.

    I can create an EXE file with ANY icon I like, making it look like a text file or music file or some other 'safe' file. When the user double-clicks on my EXE, pwnage ensues!
  • stonebear, on 10/12/2007, -4/+8Hmmm, they failed to mention the integrated DRM. Probably just an oversight. ;^)
  • Po0py, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3Now I know how Denzel Washington will look like with grey hair. My life is complete.
  • rpeterclark, on 10/12/2007, -3/+6Here come the old "who had what first" and "what OS is better" blah blah blah... I'm so tired of the banter. Personally I'm psyched to see what they are doing with Vista, for better of worse it's the first major change to Windows in a long time, it will be interesting to see how well it comes together.
  • theone3, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3emiles; Actually, that's exactly what they fixed in the new Vista core. They rebuilt it entirely from scratch for the first time since NT4.

    Also, the community section is amazing. A stark contrast from Apple, it's totally organised and open blogging about the development going on!
  • tezprice, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2I use Windows XP, I like Windows XP, it does what I need to do and it does it without messing about for hours just to install graphics drivers (I'm looking at you Linux) and is compatible with the latest games (I'm looking at you Mac). So i'm in no way a Microsoft hater, as 90% of people on here seem to be, (hypocrites running Windows).

    What angers me about Vista is Msoft seem to have added things like "SuperFetch" to boost performance and then loaded the OS down with fancy ***** that noone wants or needs.
    I've tried a beta of Vista and more of the fancy graphics are annoying. The see through stuff makes text hard to read and gives me a headache. When you close an application it blends in and out, thats cool once after that its very annoying. I know these things can be turned off but my point is this; do Microsoft want a fast, easy to use, next gen OS or do they want a load of ***** graphical tricks?
    IE7 is rubbish as well.
  • aluminumpork, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2Personally, I'm excited for it. XP has never let me down, and I've never ever received a blue screen from XP. It seems Vista is fixing all the things I hated about XP. For one, the cascading All Programs list. I'm glad to see it gone and replaced with a live search, HUGE TIME SAVER. I'm also very glad to see the search box in every explorer. I've waited along time for that. There's been so many times when I didn't want to search my entire computer, but only the current folder. Just something quick to search a large amount of files without bringing up the damn animated dog search and answering those stupid questions. Anyways, everything I saw is welcomed by me, especially since the laptop I bought is a 64bit Turion with a gig of ram, so I'm ready for Vista.
  • clackerd, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2vista is starting to look like it won't totally suck. i use a mac at home and a windows machine at work, so i get to see both their warts. true, ms is borrowing from apple on the UI front, but they go back and forth with each other all the time. as long as we end users get to enjoy theses features, who cares who invented them?

    ...oh and linux sucks. (had to keep the flame war going...)

  • Zippo, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2Some of the performance and visual features are pretty exciting. The idea of a flash drive acting as RAM sounds pretty cool.
  • Ramble, on 10/12/2007, -2/+4Mac has had hardly any of these features 'for ages'.
    Actually, Apple stole most of them off Microsoft.
  • o0joshua0o, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2Looks good. When will they make it available for download?
  • spamdies, on 10/12/2007, -2/+3i'll buy that for a dollar.
    just block/report the mac fanboys that keep posting off topic and you wont have to see them.
  • emiles, on 10/12/2007, -3/+4Vista is going to be like every other version of windows. Shiny at first, but then it slows down, down, down and then starts having all kinds of issues, hang ups and security holes.

    The "new" features are cool and some are well needed, and yeah, I know that people are tired of which os is better arguments, but seriously, mac os has most all of these features while having very few drawbacks except for serious gamers.
  • Forse, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Say what you want but more people care about vista coming out then any other os :)

    ++digg
  • ThePhilomath, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1External USB key as ram?!?!? Is it true, has microsoft finally done something worthwhile all by themselves!
  • theologygeek, on 10/12/2007, -1/+2I say kudos to Microsoft if they can built a better OS. My big problem with them is their licensing and pricing schemes. Let me buy a copy for $50 and install it on all my home PC's, and I will buy Vista. No? Then I'm going to stick with Linux as a desktop OS and Wine for my unfortunate Windows needs.
  • inactive, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Bah, it looks nice,
  • n00854180t, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1"Here come the old "who had what first" and "what OS is better" blah blah blah... I'm so tired of the banter. Personally I'm psyched to see what they are doing with Vista, for better of worse it's the first major change to Windows in a long time, it will be interesting to see how well it comes together."

    Agreed, regardless of OSX and *nix having many of the features previously, it will be nice to have them with applications that are unavailable on those platforms. I'm looking forward to WinFS, assuming they ever put it in.
  • BugMeNot2, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1"You may have experienced sluggish behavior after booting your machine, after performing a fast user switch, or even after lunch."

    Lunch?
  • sumrandommember, on 10/12/2007, -1/+2@ruckus21

    I'd like to see you throw a few hundred thousand lines of code together and not have any technical or security issues.
  • dongiaconia, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1The 3-D flip seems very cool. The rest of it looks less innovative and usefull. Like many people, I always use detail view in explorer, so I don't see what use the scalable icons would be in that mode. Unless its a pictures folder, in which case I use the filmstrip view.
  • replica, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Vista looks great. Will buy on day 1.
  • inactive, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1How in the HELL does Vista IN ANY WAY looks like Mac OS X? There is absolutely ZERO similarity.
  • Reddog_x2000, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1I'm gonna hold off Vista for 6-12 months until they work the bugs out.
  • Ramble, on 10/12/2007, -3/+4"Nice ad for M$. NO DIGG."

    Still 13 then I see..
  • tharealmegaman, on 10/12/2007, -2/+3Windows will now have those shiney buttons and moving things that Apple users love so much. They'll have no more excuse.
  • Mortabus, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Vista Looks good to me. Then again, I liked Windows 3.1, then I liked the improvements with 98, then I liked the improvements of XP. All have suited my needs well. Vista looks like another step forward, not revolutionary, just evolutionary. (And yes, I did intentionally leave out 95 and ME)
  • *Ica*, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Anyone know when Vista will be available to buy?

    And make no mistake I WILL be buying it this time, MS have pissed me off so much with all the anti piracy crap on XP I just want a fully legit version this time.
  • nerdboy1987, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Why do people like the fact that they constantly have to buy upgrades for OS X, I bought one copy of XP on 112001 and have used it since. How many OS X releases have there been?
  • Rekkid, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Reading the Vista site made me feel like a kid again. Remember DOS Shell in version MS DOS 4.0? I didn't think computers could ever get any cooler. I stayed up all night. Ahhh nostalgia tears dripping down my cheeks. Looking forward to Vista, I need a change!
  • talishte, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0I could be very smart and no pay more than US $1.00 for Windows Vista becouse you can get more than that free just take a look at this video

    http://www.youtube.com/?v=pDWNP3OD0Is

    I am bringing a REALY clearity to your world
  • Lagged2Death, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0IceUck says: "At some point, someone at MS thought it'd be a good idea to only search Microsoft-approved file types (previously, if you told it to search *.snarfblat, then that's what it did). The result is that the search is pretty much useless."

    I've noticed the same thing under XP. In my case, turning the Indexing Service off (either through the Services control panel or through the preferences in an Explorer search bar) made searches work correctly again (although in many cases more slowly, too).
  • blissfulignant, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0Much love for the new feature that allows for external displays on laptops that show critical information... I've been waiting on that one for a while.
  • SupaDawg, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0IceUck... Those are all valid complaints... but all things that wouldnt work for a casual user. We cant allow casual users to see extensions as 1) most dont know the difference between exe and txt anyhow 2) It allows them to remove extensions thus rendering their files useless

  • theone3, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0"Why is external USB ram good? I don't get it. Isn't USB2.0 slower than a harddrive?"

    USB 2.0 = 480 Mbps which translates to about 200Mbps in practice. Hard Drive = 40Mbps. Seek time = 0ms. USB lag = almost non-existant (look at usb mice for example)

    What I don't like is that there's no requirement for Wireless USB in the standards. I understand that it's not quite there yet but dammit I can't wait :P.
  • birch25, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0"Personally I'm psyched to see what they are doing with Vista, for better of worse it's the first major change to Windows in a long time"

    a major update that catches them up to Mac OS X 10.4...wow, microsoft is amazing!

    the major features are quick search (apple's spotlight), tabbed browsing and rss in IE (apple's safari), the sidebar (apple's dashboard), sleep (apple's sleep, which they've had for years), and flip 3d (apple's exposé and command+tab, which we've had for 2-3 years).

    the sidebar looks kind of cool if it is faster than dashboard, but flip 3d looks clunky as hell. meanwhile, their quick search looks dangerously similar to spotlight with the same search saves, but instead of calling them Smart Folders like apple, they're Search Folders.

    but all is not lost in the microsoft camp...the os remembering your most used apps and loading them into ram when you boot up is cool and the ability to scale the ui to your liking is neat also.
  • chookalana, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0"I don't get what some Apple fanbois are talking about, Microsoft looks years ahead of Apple in OS design."

    Yeah, I gotta agree on that. Microsoft's aim was right on when they started out with the Vista reload. They've perfectly captured what the technology of that time will need, what it can handle, and where improvements can be made. Hopefully Vista 2 will be a highly-optimised version of Vista. Perhaps then we'll see PCs becoming smaller, more stable and more efficient. An inversion in the increasing processor power and software bloat trends seem due. For now though, they've hit the limit perfectly, providing as much functionality as possible.
    posted by theone3 (5) -

    I love these comments. You are talking about Micosoft's OS - THAT"S NOT EVEN OUT YET! Apple has these features NOW. What will OS 10.5 have in store? We will know when it's released around the time the Vista is released.
  • theone3, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0@bpd115
    Calander = iCal
    Been in both Windows and Mac since the year nod.
    Gadgets = Widgets
    Gadgets have been in development since before Apple stole the konfabulator concept
    Search = Spotlight
    Been in development prior to OSX's Spotlight
  • Carbito, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0Wow, looks very nice!

    I don't get what some Apple fanbois are talking about, Microsoft looks years ahead of Apple in OS design.
  • robche, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0all these people saying its just xp with a theme and only minor security features, god! it had a completley re-written kernel, ms have gotten there ***** together for this one, they know linux and osx is stealing customers (at the rate of jehovas witness conversions.. but lets give them the benefit of the doubt). The only software i buy is microsoft windows, and this will be no diffrent
  • TuxFan, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0Vista has to be released before I comment on it. I just hope they fixed the WMF flaw and not require service packs just to patch security holes. Till then, XP on notebook and Linux on desktop.
  • mt256, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0there's alot under the hood of Vista that will allow some really amazing apps to be created. check some concept videos out here:
    http://msdn.microsoft.com/windowsvista/community/events/conceptvid/default.aspx

    These are quite business-oriented but are still amazing
  • Arramol, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0Looks like it might be interesting. I'll wait for the reviews before I make any purchase though.
  • FunHeadlines, on 10/12/2007, -1/+1How nice, it has pretty features. It ought to. They kept reducing the feature list of Vista to get it out the door, the least they could do is make it pretty.

    But the more important issue is what was mentioned by a commenter earlier: DRM, folks. Vista is the beginning of the great lockdown where YOU don't get to own YOUR data. Enjoy!
  • Mooseknuckle, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0Page doesnt show for me under firefox either...
  • chrisu, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0Sounds very similar to the sales blurb written on the bottom of my Windows XP Pro Retail Upgrade box,
    And my 98 Upgrade box. Don't have any of the blurb for 95 because it was OEM.
  • tezprice, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0Why is external USB ram good? I don't get it. Isn't USB2.0 slower than a harddrive?
  • tmcpheeters, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0Looks cool, why bad mouth things before you try them? If we never accepted new products we'd still be using DOS...
  • sidebuster, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0Wow external memory, that is a new one. I heard about the hybrid hard drive already, but I have never heard of external (usb i think) memory.
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