ZDNet UK


Skip to Main Content

ZDNet.co.uk - Winner of Best Business Website 2007
  1. Home
  2. News
  3. Blogs
  4. Reviews
  5. Prices
  6. Resources
  7. Community
  8. My ZDNet

 

ZDNet UK RSS Feeds


IT Jobs

Desktop platforms Toolkit in association with http://ad.doubleclick.net/clk;205413468;14699245;m?http://adfarm.mediaplex.com/ad/ck/2397-58840-22058-14

Story: Five things you'll love (and hate) about Windows Vista

  • Previous comment

Posted by: John Albrich (Sunday 25 June 2006, 11:01 AM)

  • Reply

Continuing my post:

Microsoft could have probably provided superior and more reliable performance gains by trimming program fat.

5. "Enhanced help"
Remote help is ALREADY available. Remote access is built-in to Windows,XP and even older versions have limited capabilities, which can become fully

functional by adding a third party utility.

As for 'expanded' help? I hope it's better than the Office "Paper-clip". Will it actually end up being useful? Maybe. Hundreds of dollars worth of
useful? I doubt it. And, in a business environement, the cost of upgrading to Vista is going to be significant.

Upgrade costs are not limited to the
cost of the license(s). There are literally dozens of added costs whenever a business implements such a major OS upgrade, and the cost of the actual

OS license is probably one of the lowest costs in that list.

In short, it appears that most of the "What I Love" top 5 items are either already available in earlier Windows versions, can be easily added with
little or no cost at all, or have questionable actual value to the user.

------------------------

Moving on to the "What I Hate" list...

1. Current hardware won't cut it. Thanks for the warning...But, it certainly didn't cover everything. As another item of interest however, what the
heck does adding resource hogging glitzy non-functional graphics have to do with an Operating System?

WHY is an OS forcing a user to go to a high-performance video adapter when
most motherboards already contain integrated video chipset suitable for most business applications? Technical users will understand that

non-functional glitz adds very little if any value, and certainly doesn't increase productivity.

An OS is supposed to make the computer function...not pretty it up. All else is applications, add-ons, or glitz. Glitz is a marketing feature...not an OS

functional requirement.

2. 'Aero Graphics eating battery power'. Again, thanks for the warning on this one. Good to know. But in terms of actual consequences for most

users??? Not really high up there. There will be a fair-sized subset of users that this affects, but it highly likely there is some other negative change

that is more important to the user community as a whole.

What Vista SHOULD have, is a power-management option that disables all power-hungry OS additions anyway. And, since that problem CAN be

addressed by a power-managment option (such as turning Aero Graphics off)...it should NOT be one of the top 5 "What I Hate" issues.

3. User Account Protection.
This is one where the priority should probably be bumped up. From what I have heard from some beta users, this element of Vista is far more than

inconvenient than simply requiring more user interaction with pop-ups.

Some users report completely uninstallable devices and software...not because of driver issues, but because Vista REFUSED to allow the perfectly

valid install to occur. That is a much more important event than simply noting the inconvenience of pop-up button-clicking.

4. Missing drivers and applications. Another something that shouldn't be on a "important" list. As the author said, this will probably continue to be
addressed, and drivers will likely be available from third parties. Not that big a problem. It's not a daily occurence for most people, and it will likely
be signficantly improved by the time the product is released. However, if Microsoft does NOT plan to address the issue, then it is a big concern.

5. "Troubled Sleep". Again, this is not a high-priority issue. It will likely be fixed, and even if it remains a problem, it's not only a new feature for

which
there is no known user-base so far, but similar functionality DOES work, and saves the current session to disk...albeit a bit more slowly.

Also, it remains an issue mostly for notebook users, and I believe the vast majority of Vista installs won't be on notebooks (for

  • Previous comment

  • Reply to this comment
  • Return to story
  • Report this as offensive


Full Talkback thread

Featured Talkback

So if you upgrade to XP SP3 you can't uninstall Internet Explorer, I'm quite sure I'm having a Deja-vu feeling about MS preventing people from uninstalling Internet Explorer in other Windows products.

By: TheKLF99

Read full story:
Upgraders to XP SP3 warned over IE downgrades

Desktop Management Benchmarking

Test Your Desktop Management Systems

How good are your company's desktop management solutions? How do they compare with those of your peers?

Take two minutes to complete our new Desktop Management and Energy Consumption benchmark, and find out what issues your business needs to focus on.