smackfoo.com | I find your lack of faith disturbing.

After two very frustrating days, I can honestly, hand on my heart, say that Vista is just not ready.

I will spare you all the “beta review” ((there a great many doing the rounds at present)) and simply slice it all down to some pretty fundamental things that Microsoft have to get right and just plain aren’t.

UAC (( User Account Control)) seeks to limit user rights and requires the user acknowledge via a dialog box when anything remotely administrative happens. Linux and OS X, to name but a few, have had this for years and it works well, prompting when needed and remembering for a few minutes each time.. keeping security up and yet remaining unobtrusive.

Microsoft’s UAC however blows chunks - it kicks in far to often.. even deleting one’s own files requires elevated privileges - as does sending a file to the recycle bin. It’s a constant irritant that will lead to many simply switching it off.. resulting in the same ‘every user is an administrator’ problem that exists today. One cannot scratch one’s posterior without having to fight multiple dialog boxes.

Did I say multiple? Yes - unlike OS X or Linux where one simply punches in the current password to authorise the activity, Microsoft decides to make you acknowledge that something needs elevated privileges, then in a second dialog box seeks a yes or no. Why the fuck this isn’t a single dialog box or password box beggars belief. I cannot scratch my ass without UAC asking me if I really want to do, what I’ve obviously just asked it to do. It will be one of the first things the bulk of the windows community disables. The concept is great - the execution is not.

Default applications for web and email are a cinch in XP - pick your browser of choice, or email client & bam, sorted. Right now Beta 2 does not allow this - it’s Microsoft or bust. Fuck that - I don’t need a flashback to windows 98 and enforced explorer bundling. While IE 7 is now separated out of the core OS, Microsoft just can’t help but continue to try and tell people what’s good for them.

The old layout of file location has changed - with new locations for user documents and profiles.. however UAC tends to get confused and will block access¹ to the ‘legacy’ shortcuts that point to the new file structure. UAC is terribly immature and it shows.

Now, it’s not all doom and gloom - the GUI is very snappy, thanks to DirectX rendering and the overall ‘feel’ is more punchy.. but.. it comes at a price.

My 3ghz Athlon 64bit processor runs at 100% utilisation constantly, due to the accelerated UI. Even with 1gb of ram and an extremely fast SATA hard-drive, Vista will consume a lot of resources just at idle.. and one really cannot reboot overly often, as while boot times have been slashed² the gap from login to idle desktop was frequently counted in minutes as the system frequently stalled while attempting to start the 40 odd default processes alone.

Vista will be a turning point for Microsoft, yet, with all the feature slash and burn continuing, ultimately it’s now just XP with a slightly more secure default operation, an accelerated UI and some whizz-bang candy.

I want to like Vista.. and some parts of it do hint at amazing possibilities but I just can’t. Perhaps I will re-evaluate my standpoint post Service Pack 1, but the frustrations of the idiotic UAC implementation and the tendency for simple tasks to become a marathon event spoil any good that may have been created.

Beta 2 is still an immature OS and unless the rough edges are removed and the constant date slippage brought under control, it will be too little, to late. Beta 2 was fun to trial, but a serious, productive OS it is not and I will thus be reverting back to XP and OS X for now.

1. even after privileges are elevated (↩)
2. I clocked it at an average of 7-9 seconds from POST to login (↩)