Vista: n00b

The long awaited Vista has finally arrived, with much hype Windows created. What with a breakthrough of interface (Aero) or improved security which even comes with a two-way traffic firewall. Wow. It seems as though Windows has finally woken up and released something that looks and performs as stunningly as its competitors.

See those leaflets in Harvey Norman and Courts? Pure propaganda. And you have got to pay like $400+ to get one of those "Home Premium" packs that "deliver more productivity and entertainment". Yeah right. The Aero even has a cool flip 3d navigation that allows you to leaf through open windows in 3d-real time. Amazing...like totally out of this world.. As if Linux didn't already have a 3d navigation that allows you to toggle between desktops.

Ok enough being cynical. Window Vista's interface is a real development over XP's blue and green. Its more-often-annoying-than-useful security such as antispyware and firewalls arent nearly as good or established third-party ones like NOD32 or ZoneAlarm.
It is a resource monster. If you have 1gb ram on your set and have Vista (trial, whatever) installed on it the CPU usage skips from 40% to 100% everytime you open a document or execute a program. Note, 40% is like when its idling there doing nothing.

Vista has cool wallpapers that make a huge impact when potential buyers leaf through Vista brochures and see them. Personally, The only things I like other than the facelift is the Instant search function for files and the Bitlocker software. The search function should be much more efficient than the current one in XP, which takes from a few seconds to a few minutes just to finish a search completely. The Bitlocker encrypts files to protect data though freeware of this kind is available anywhere on the net from softpedia to download.com, it is indeed useful to have complete integration with the OS itself.

Also, the drastic improvement of startup time in Vista is much appreciated. It typically starts up in around less than 10 secs to the login page and will load the startup progs in the background as you start working. This is a very major change, as previous versions of MS (95, 98, ME, 2000, XP) all startup like just under the time needed for you to eat some cereal or make a short phone call.

All in all, I would very much like to own (not buy) a Vista Ultimate in the near future of 2-3 years when the OS has settled into the industry and when more patches/features/software/exploits/better and cheaper hardware are available for it.

An OEM with Home Basic(totally sucks, really) would be around $1500. Buy a Vista today!

Windows Vista's competitors
Linux with Beryl
Link 2
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