I thought before I start talking about Windows Vista, let me first find out what the word “Vista” really means. I couldn’t really come to the conclusion of its true meaning, because there are a lot of ‘experts’ telling their own stories. Some of the meanings that I came across were – hen, sight, “Hasta La Vista” meaning good bye, and one of the worst ones – excretion!
However, the most insulting one that I found was on one of forums that I came across:
Windows
V = Virus
I = Infections
S = Spyware
T = Trojans
A = Adware.
Ouch!
I can tell you one thing – I am sure it isn’t that bad. From all that I have heard, Microsoft has put a lot of effort into making Vista a very secure operating system (I know some of you might already be chuckling from your experience with previous Windows systems).
But I really want to talk about what my first impression of Vista was when I started using it. Wandering why I even bothered to get Vista? My Dell laptop broke and I really needed a new one. BTW, I am never ever going to get a Dell again. First, my charger breaks, then I had to replace my battery, then one of my memory slots die, so I bought a 512 ram chip to keep working with one slot, and now even that was busted. And all this happened in less than 3 years. Yah I know I should have gotten extended warrantee, but who knew it was going to be a piece of $5%!*.
Oh right… yah,…Vista. Firstly, there are 6 different versions of Vista! Why? Ya really WHY? There’s no version that gives you best features packed in one. If you take Home Premium (I don’t even want to mention Home Basic), you’re missing out some of the things you might need for your small business, if you take Business edition, you’re missing out on the entertainment part of your system. The only version that gives you all is Ultimate edition. But what if I don’t want everything? Then you and I have to choose either an ‘entertainment system’ or a business system. Why couldn’t they come up with at least one Windows Vista “value pack” that doesn’t just throw everything at you like Vista Ultimate does, but gives you best of both the entertainment world and the business world.
Moving on. I was hoping as soon as I turn on my laptop I would be able to start working with it – not really! It took more than half an hour for it to do its “initial setup”.
The Transparent look is nothing really to marvel at. I was literally yawning. And you know how you can choose different windows that are open by pressing “Alt + Tab” in windows XP? Well,…you can do that in Vista too, but it looks way better. However to spice things up you can press “windows key + Tab” and do the same thing in 3-D! (WAOW right? Not! Like I care,…yawning). Both the transparency effect and the 3-Dness is useless.
Another useless feature is the little preview window over the taskbar for programs that have been minimized. For example, say you are working with 5 different word files, is that little preview window going to show you enough so that you can click nothing else but the right one? Absolutely not! I’d rather save time and just click on the window to see if that’s the one I want.
The only feature that made me say “now THAT’s what I am talking about.” is the search feature. Ever tried doing a search on your Windows XP and seeing that stupid dog doing boring tricks while you wait for at least one file to show up in your search window? Well great news – in Vista they got rid of that dog, man’s (man/woman using windows) best friend. Vista actually shows you your search results as you start typing, and then keeps narrowing it down – that I like.
The Gadgets are okay…Hmmm Gadgets (Widgets) sounds familiar doesn’t it. I.E. (Internet Explorer) 7 is much better than previous versions. Its much secure and has other needed features like tabbed browsing. But that’s just for people who have never looked outside their ‘windows’. I finally don’t mind using I.E. for surfing the Internet.
There are other things that give users some better experience compared to previous version of windows, but overall Vista is a disappointment. Or perhaps I was just expecting more. I decided to hand down my new Vista Laptop to my sibling and stick to my windows XP. I just hope Vista is not the ME of 2007 (remember Windows ME?), which is a scary thought.