Vista Sucks?

[Fake Boris]

Originally posted by LordShiva
I don't like Winamp's media library taking up more than a tiny bit of my screen.

I thought you had a 23 inches LCD or something.

[LordShiva]

Originally posted by Oncle Boris


I thought you had a 23 inches LCD or something.

61 inches, actually. I don't like my Winamp window stretching 3 feet across

[LordShiva]

Originally posted by Kuciwalker


Thus alt-tab and a search in WMP

One too many keys - the "music folder" hotkey on my keyboard is quicker

[Kuciwalker]

So you hit Windows-1 (or whatever number) and search, and that's faster?

Needless to say, clicking and then typing is slower than almost any key combo.

[LordShiva]

No, my keyboard a row of extra buttons with little pictures on them. One of them is a cute little musical note, that opens the My Music folder.

[Blake]

Originally posted by Asher

I'm beginning to notice a correlation between IQs and Vista-haters...

Go you.

To disable the annoying visual EFFECTS I had to go to look under PERFORMANCE. Not just performance, but "Performance Information and Tools". I don't expect to find "Adjust Visual Effects" under "Tools" or "Info", I expect it under "Settings".

The coloration between effects and performance does exist but I say it's not as strong as between effects and appearance.

Bear in mind that coming from a 2K background (and being a Fluxbox user in linux) I may wish to disable more than those who are happy with the default XP look/feel. I don't know.

But regardless the (multi-step) process of whipping the interface into shape was not straightforward and in the end I only found some options by accidentally stumbling across them while looking for other things.

[Asher]

Originally posted by Blake
Go you.

To disable the annoying visual EFFECTS

Since when were effects an interface?

If you switch to "Windows Classic", effects are automatically disabled. It is just like, um, Windows Classic...

[Imran Siddiqui]

Originally posted by LordShiva
The search feature pwns. Sure, I'm OCD with my metatagging and sorting, but try finding the song you want in my music collection using XP

I agree. I really do like the search feature. Though I love the new interface as well (especially on a widescreen monitor with the sidebar clearly in view at all times when I'm not playing a game).

[Nostromo]

The search feature is nice, but there are third-party desktop search apps available for XP (Google desktop, Copernic...)

[Wiglaf]

Weird how OS X has had these innovations first, consistently.

[Nostromo]

Vista took like forever to finish. That can't help.

[Asher]

Originally posted by Wiglaf
Weird how OS X has had these innovations first, consistently.

I'll be happy when they can "innovate" a consistent GUI, which they're still working on.

They also added "innovations" such as user switching well after they were in XP.

The innovation train goes both ways. Spotlight is a complete ripoff of early Longhorn prototypes well before they were released, for instance.

[Colon™]

As the saying goes, great artists steal. I think it's very healthy for Windows that MS doesn't have any qualms in taking ideas from others. The end-user has no benefit in the not-invented-here syndrome.

[Pekka]

Well, about toolbars and stealing, in this business, it's not stealing, OK?

First of all, there are few universal truths in the software business, some of it may apply to other businesses as well, and it is that don't build a product from scratch. It takes tons of resources, there's tons of things that might go wrong (direction wise) etc, basically, if it's there already, why invent the wheel? This is acceptable.

Second of all, you might be prototyping or doing artefact analysis or whatever it is that you do, so sometimes you might be focusing on what you have, the version of the product, and you have it tested by testers etc. But, most likely you alslo analyze the similar products of your competitors. What's good about it? What is bad about it? How can you make it better?

SO if there is some kind of a toolbar and everyone likes it, you do research and you find out people really like it and you don't have it, what do you do? Of course you will implement it, that's smart and acceptable in this business.

There's always been the "MS stole this from Apple"... it's BS, historically it might be true in some cases, but Apple stole it from Xerox first in the 70s.

And no, I don't think ideas should be proprietary, maybe some of you people do, but that's because you're a bunch of communists.

[-Jrabbit]

It's not stealing. It's a tribute, an homage. And it has gone both ways for 20 years or so. Basic physical science dictates a certain sameness in how many products are designed, and it's more evident in PC than many others due to the need to unify the hardware and software in a (usually) networked product environment.

Vista took a long time. Apple's new OS is also delayed. It's expected and, one hopes, an indication that the products will live up to their hype.

In the end, it's all about making the user happy. Frankly, MS has a much tougher job in that respect, since its user base is so massive and diverse. But all the arguments over who stole what from whom are, IMHO, moot. It's really just fodder for the folk who have big emotional investments in their buying decisions.