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First Days with Microsoft Vista, Part II

Published by marco on

This article was originally published on the Encodo Blogs. Browse on over to see more!


In part one of this article, we discussed improvements to the user interface and basic applications like Windows Explorer. In this second part, we take a quick look at some usability issues associated with installation, networking and security.

Networking
Accessing known networks is snappy and pretty easy, taking advantage of an explorer that actually seems to use threads (shocking!) One down side is that, somehow, networking support isn’t as robust as that in OS X. A laptop that shows up fine on OS X’s browser simply never displays in Vista or XP. Typing in the path of the shared folder on the laptop directly pops open the expected window immediately (user/password were even the same), but the laptop remains steadfastly unbrowsable. That’s a pity because it’s not likely to get any better, as Vista is the pinnacle of 5 years of work. If Vista can’t see XP computers on the same network now, it’s likely that Microsoft has simply given up trying.
User Account Control

You know that new Apple commercial? The one where the PC guy is accompanied by a secret service agent asking him to “cancel or allow” actions? Right on the nose. Apple isn’t being mean … and they’re not exaggerating. It’s conceivable that this constant nagging settles down after a while, but during initial installation the screen is nearly constantly going black, then 50% black with a dialog asking you to confirm an action. OS X has the exact same mechanism, but asks much less often. As many of Vista’s questions are prompted by the need to change registry keys, one can only imagine that it’s the more monolithic nature of Windows itself that is to blame.

As it turns out, the blacking effect has less to do with a non-optimal effect and more to do with the security mechanism. Vista is actually switching to a different desktop in order to display this dialog within a completely different context—one from which only a user response is accepted. This prevents rogue programs from faking a keypress to allow malicious action. Vista just uses a copy of your current desktop image as the background for this high-security one to fool you into thinking that nothing has changed.

Unfortunately, switching desktops confuses some modern graphics cards/displays into thinking that they’ve been shut off, leaving the screen off for at least a second (using a Philips flat screen connected by DVI) or more, as reported by some users with CRTs that turn off completely for the desktop switch. Fortunately, you can turn off User Account Control, but then you get an icon in the task tray telling you that you are a very bad person. You can also turn off the icon; however, doing so also turns off messages about out-of-date security or virus definitions.

Much more useful would have been the ability to temporarily escalate privileges for a given context. The sudo command in various flavors of Unix have done this for years, while OS X translated this to UIs by putting a lock icon at the bottom of windows with operations that may require escalated privileges. Click the lock to log in once and have full administrator rights until the window is dismissed. That strikes a far better balance between security and usability than the current implementation. Who knows? Maybe Apple patented it and Microsoft was too proud to license it. Whatever the reason, for anyone making heavy use of their administrator capabilities, leaving User Account Security on is not really an option.

Hardware Requirements
Vista runs nicely on a brand new machine—purchased for just over CHF1100, or just under $900—and Aero Glass works great with the built-in NVidia card. Since there are 2GB of RAM installed in the machine, but Vista reports on 1.8GB to be available, it can assumed that the graphics card has reserved about 200MB for itself. The effects are all quite smooth, even though, with a performance rating of 3.0, Microsoft warns that Vista may have problems at resolutions over 1280 × 1024.
Installation

Installation is also relatively smooth and question-free, though it does take quite a while to finish. With only an upgrade CD available (as part of the Microsoft Action Pack), one is required to install twice in order to avoid installing over Windows XP. All together, that’s over an hour spent on installing the machine. Here, Vista stumbles with by introducing itself in a not-very-reassuring way. Just in the first few windows of the installer, the user is faced with a UI that is clearly not Windows; it behaves differently in subtle ways and exhibits many of the idiosynchracies of it predecessors:

  • Drop-downs don’t respond to multiple keypresses, so you won’t find Switzerland by typing “swi”. You end up on “India” (or whichever country starting with “I” comes first).
  • The back button in what is clearly an installation wizard is no longer to the left of the “next” button, but is inexplicably at the top left corner of the window. The windows explorer also has it’s back button there, but you have got to be kidding me. How did this pass usability testing? It’s clearly the work of dozens of managers ignoring their designers to make sure that they “deliver” the Vista “experience” right away.
  • Returning to the very first screen reveals that the installer isn’t even capable of remembering the language selection made just one screen ago. Another screen doesn’t remember the time zone selection.This is simple stuff. Basics. Restoring user values. UI 101.
  • Speaking of time zones, why does it sometimes default to Switzerland and sometimes default to Redmond? Why doesn’t the pretty analog clock update when you change the time?

The installer seems to be an exception because Microsoft has clearly made an effort to actually store user settings so that windows open back up where you left them. The welcome screen is an exception here, resetting which areas are revealed and hidden every time it is displayed and resizing itself, too boot. The infamous “Services” control panel also still doesn’t remember that you’d rather have the standard view than the extended one. The weather gadget defaults to Redmond instead of somewhere in the local area.

These are trifles, though, in comparison to what seems to be a solid release. After almost a week of use, it’s still fun and has enough advantages, perks, glitz and glam to distract from some of the things that don’t work so great. It’s a remarkably solid effort from Microsoft and many of these wrinkles will likely be smoothed out in future service packs. That, probably more than anything else, if what they’ve copied from Apple: enough of Vista is done really well that users will stay distracted from the things it doesn’t do well at all. OS X is also not perfect, but it does enough things right to make it bearable—Vista seems to have joined that club.