I'm Thankful for Windows Vista

Of course I have no credibility here (I'm part of the evil empire, after all), but I have to say, I'm really loving the Windows Vista Ultimate RTM. I know the Vista team takes a lot of crap for being late and for not being revolutionary enough, so I thought I'd let the Vista team know that I have yet to find something that isn't just better in Vista than in XP. Here are a few things I really like:

• I no longer have to do Ctrl+Esc, R before I can type something to run (I'm a huge keyboard guy); I just have to type Ctrl+Esc and start typing. This savings alone has ruined me for XP. (And before you point out that I can just use Win+R, I don't like the Windows key: it's not on all keyboards and it's not always in the same place.)
• If I want to search for a program in my voluminous start menu, I just do Ctrl+Esc and start typing. When the list of results contains my target, I press the down arrow to pick the one I want and press Enter when I get there.
• If I want to search for content on my computer, I just do Ctrl+Esc and start typing (once search is set to index my entire computer -- I wish that were the default). If I want to be specific that I just want to search content or file name, I can use the "content:" and "name:" designators, e.g. "content:foo name:foo.cs".
• If I want to find a setting in a particular control panel app, I open the control panel and start typing -- the results point me at the specific control panel applet and page with that setting.
• If I want to find something on the internet, I press Ctrl+Esc and start typing, then press the up arrow (to get to the "Search the Internet" option) and press Enter, which brings up the results in my IE7 favorite search engine.
• If I want to find something in my large list of installed programs, I open the Programs and Features control panel and start typing (I found the renamed "Add and Remove Programs" control panel by searching for "uninstall").
• Before you narrow my list of likes about Vista to "pervasive search" (which, obviously, I love), I also really like the sidebar. It's amazing how often I glance over there to get some quick piece of info that's always being updated for me rather than start some app, interrupting what I'm doing (e.g. lately I've been waiting with bated breath for MSFT to hit 30). I'm anxious for lots more sidebar gadgets.
• I love that the desktop is in the Alt+Tab list.
• I love the 3D Win+Tab list.
• The games, both new and old, are uniformly gorgeous.
• I really love the new look 'n' feel, including the animations and the new start menu, both of which I turned off in XP.
• I love that it just works on my 2-year old Dell laptop w/o any muss or fuss. I only have a Windows Experience Index of 2.0 because of my graphics card, but using Vista is still a very pleasant experience (and I have Aero glass around the edges of my windows and everything).
• I really love Windows Meeting Space. I'm a big user of Live Meeting because of my remote employee status and Windows MS is a simpler, cleaner, peer-to-peer version of the only parts of LiveMeeting I every actually used, i.e. sharing apps and sharing files. To have it included for free is huge.
• I love having Media Center included, too.
• I love that I can do picture slide shows from zip files as well as from folders.
• I like the new Sync Center, one-stop shopping for my offline folders (which I love) as well as managing my smartphone's files.
• I really like the real-time thumbnail of apps when I hang the mouse over icons in the taskbar and in the Alt+Tab/Win+Tab list.
• I love that .NET 3.0 is included out of the box.
• I love that every app I've tried, including an app I originally wrote for Windows 95, just works.
• I love that I find new features all the time.
• As I've mentioned, I like the clearification.com site. In fact, I liked it so much, Mel and I want to see Demetri Martin live in Portland. Very funny.

Seriously, given the experience with recent pre-release versions of Vista, I thought I was going to just stick with XP. I'm so glad I didn't. Vista rocks.

P.S. I'll continue to desensitize/scare away readers with political/religious/social messages in future posts. Until then, Happy Thanksgiving!

umm, yeah, been doing that all year on OSX. (spotlight rocks).

> If I want to find a setting in a particular
> control panel app, I open the control panel and
> start typing -- the results point me at the
> specific control panel applet and page with
> that setting.

But Vista's implementation of this is nothing like Spotlight. Just take a look:
http://www.zdnet.de/i/et/sw/2006/Apple/spotlight-ig400.jpg

RichB: I'm guessing it's more like Quicksilver (http://blacktree.com/apps/quicksilver/) - that's one of my 'can't live without' apps on OS X.

Wow, I guess if you like the 3d Win Tab list, you're going to have to get over your fear of the Win key, huh....?

How does Vista Search stack up against X1, which I recall you were a big fan of?

I still like X1, but the integration of search into absolutely everything in Vista is fabulous.

Chris, this "comment" might be "too easy", but if you would have stick to the mac, you would have had 90% of your "i love" waaaaay before Vista :) In somethin' I heard about called Tiger :) Watch out for Leopard, BTW - And this is an ex-.net dev speaking :)

I love the fact that my Visual Studio starts up in 1-2 seconds, even right after starting Windows.

What in the hell is with all you Mac people?

I own a Mac, and I've managed to do so without feeling it necessary to point out as often as possible that it had Feature [X] five billion years before Vista did.

Have any of you considered, inside your binary, black and white minds, that it's entirely possible to like *both* OS X *and* Vista simultaneously?

Or, perhaps, that Chris might have a rather hefty investment in Windows, given that his day job is to work on software for it?

I realize it might be my time of the month or something, but this OS X vs. Vista thing has got to stop - it's just another pointless argument that will never change any minds or get anybody anywhere good.

I love both systems. It's possible to do.

And, :gasp:, there are things I like *better* about Vista than OS X (and things about OS X that I like better than Vista).

When did the techie world become so unimaginative and closed-minded?

Has it always been this way, and I just didn't notice?

I'm scared.

Somebody hold me...

So I can go out and pay hundreds o' dollars so that I can type Ctrl+Esc instead of Ctrl+Esc, R? That's the first thing you mention to love about Vista? Dude, no offense intended but you have just anti-convinced me. :)

So I can go out and pay hundreds of dollars so that I can type Ctrl Esc instead of Ctrl Esc, R? That's the first thing you mention to love about Vista? Dude, no offense intended but you have just anti-convinced me.

Rory, I think people just want to see MS do something besides copy others. They seem so safe and dull.

I'm sure Apple and Google must get quite a chuckle at seeing MS incremently improve upon their ideas.

When was MS's last big thing? NT? Windows 95?

How did Apple come to dominate the online music market? Why can't MS create something as elegant and simple to use as an IPod? I honestly don't know.

Come on MS, do something daring. We'd all love to see it.

And Apple innovated with the iPod because there were no portable MP3 players before them! Umm, wait. Umm, it was an incremental improvement over the tons of other MP3 players. Well iTunes was the first music store! Umm, no not that either.

Considering Apple has no PC user base to maintain backwards compat, where is there vast innovation? Moving to x86 processors -- no PC company had ever done that before. :-)

app rocket

http://www.candylabs.com

now if only msft would take that project under its wings, make it open source, and highlight it as an example of the awesome things one can do with well written .net code.

I always made sure I had no shortcuts with an R in 'em under XP... : )

 Ok. Y'all Mac zealots need to get these points in to your heads.

 Where MS beats fair and square the rest of the world is in it's API. Read the following points :

* For a non-technical user Vista's Aero might look similar to OSX. But, under the hoods, Vista's XAML is way more advanced, "infinitely more productive" than anything Cocoa has to offer.
* The kind of interop one can do between various disparate Vista components ( UI and non-UI) is simply mind boggling.
* You don't have anything in OSX even remotely matching the sophistry and productivity offered by Vista's Indigo.
* For business users, the Workflow foundation is simply awesome. Again the same deal. Better productivity. Imagine business analysts simply creating real apps on the fly. Pray tell me which non-MS technology is capable of doing that ?
* They took out that Storage component but you can bet your bottom dollar that some team inside MS will cook it really nice for the next upgrade of Vista.


 Some of you might argue that how this under the hood stuff really matters. Well, that's the trick. As more consumers and Businesses get Vista, the range of apps is only limited by human imagination but definitely not by time ( because of Vista's API productivity).

 So y'all Mac users need to chill out. Under the hood Vista is way more advanced than OSX has ever been or ever could be.

Chris, instead of a Ctrl+ Esc + R to access RUN, you can use the WinKey + R, its much faster and easier to reach than Ctrl + Esc.

***Quote: How did Apple come to dominate the online music market? Why can't MS create something as elegant and simple to use as an IPod? I honestly don't know***
I've owned an ipod mini for over a year now and really like the device. That said the iTunes software is most anti-intuitive and CRAPPIEST piece of software I have ever seen. If this is Apple elegance, I'll stick w/ Windows.

Visual Studio 2003 won't install. Can't develop 80% of our code. Visual Studio 2005 doesn't work properly in Vista.

Media Center by default? Tell my Hauppauge capture card--Vista refuses to use it.

Least compatible upgrade of Windows ever.

Why bother developing for Vista when MS actually recommends you run your development tools IN A VIRTUAL PC!

Jeff Lomax

Win key is extremely useful. I use Win+[some key] every day.

Win+Break - System Properties
Win+E - Explorer
Win+R - Run
Win+F - Find / Search
Win+M - Minimize all windows
Win+Shift+M - Restore all windows
Win+Tab - Jump to Start bar, cycle left
Win+Shift+Tab - Jump to Start bar, cycle left
Win+L - Lock Workstation

I also have additional shortcuts assigned to this key. It is on most *modern* keyboards, and the last 4-5 laptops I've owned have had (at a minimum) the Win key positioned at the bottom left of the keyboard, always to the left of the Alt key. This is consistent.

The key that is _not_ consistent is the "context" menu key, which finds itself all over the keyboard.

I am most definitely a short-cut guy - Win key rules.

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