Granted Vista was pretty, and is trying to be more secure. But just like the jump from 98 to 2000, all of a sudden a lot of things don’t work. A lot of applications need new patches or releases and a lot a lot of hardware needs new drivers. Heck, I’m still fighting to get my X-Fi to work with Vista. (Currently, just trying to install the driver Blue screens permanently). But hey, a lot of the things still do work.

Windows have always been known to be one of the most backward compatible operating systems. Lots of Applications written for 95 might still run today in Vista. Of course, none of the drivers will. Drivers for XP might work for Vista, but not recommended if they do work. Which makes me wonder why Microsoft did not just make it easy on them and just make Vista 64-bit. That would have definitely led to a faster adaptation. I mean the device companies need to write new drivers anyway. At least Apple is getting this right with Leopard, but Apple has their own set of issues.

Next up in DirectX 10. Microsoft decided that they are not going to bother having it ported to XP. Though they bothered with IE7 which will make your XP do all sorts of crazy stuff. Specially if you have the 64-bit edition. And then they released 2 new games only for Vista hoping that people will switch to Vista to play those games. I know they are crazy gamers out there, but most of them like to skin the money on a next gen hardware instead of an operating system. Not to mention that for getting the most out of those games you will need to have the latest mid-range anyway.

I seriously hope more warez groups out there bitch slap Microsof. May be then they will come into their senses.

Application compatibility

So far everything I have thrown at it worked. Granted that I have been prepared for Vista due to the times I have used it during the beta cycles. However, software that did not work even in RC2 worked fine. Besides, things actually working, there were cases where you actually get surprised from the information Vista provides you about the non-compatible programs. For example, GOM Player is apparently not compatible, however, when I told it to run anyway, I did not see any problems, not that I ran it too much anyway.

The more interesting one was Adobe Audition. For people who used Audtion, they know that Audition runs it’s own components or skinning engine. So when I ran Audition in Vista, Aero turned off automatically with a note saying that the software caused it to switch modes for compatibility. Once you quit Audition, it switches back to Aero.

Enhanced security

Security could a blessing or a pain. Like I always say, to have proper security to have to give up on something. Vista’s security meassures actually stops applications to change critical registry values when not running in previleged (a.k.a. “Administrator”) mode. Due to which file associations for Foobar would not work. But run it as Administrator and try setting it, wala! Same goes for initial settings for Audition. Which of course tells me that there are updates that I would just have to wait for before the complete switch.

Even installers are properly cared for. You know how some installers would start other installers in the back end. Unfortunately, those installers all get started off in non-previleged mode, which is something you may or may not like. However, once the background installer fails, Vista would ask you if you want to try that again in previleged mode, as it realizes that the installation failed. So no hunting down and figuring out which installers to run in previlegded mode.

Video codecs

Many of us already that the wide array of videos floating around in the net (not on video sharing sites like YouTube, etc.) are usually using the million different codecs. Due to which, one of the first things that I install in a new system is K-Lite Mega Codec Pack. However, I didn’t need to for Vista. The various files that I had saved thru my PVR all worked, which meant that Vista already supported XviD and DivX at the least.

Aero, oh Aero!

As I mentioned earlier, Vista is just freaking cute. Specially when Aero is running. Flip3D, that many of you may or may not know about is just awesome. Sadly on slower systems like my laptop, you can feel the lag due to the animation, however, on my desktop things were rocking. The best thing is that all the windows are updating live when you are in Flip3D, so technically if you don’t have to interact with a window, you can keep switching between apps and check on their status. Even videos are running in that mode. The same goes for the small thumbnail when you put your mouse over the taskbar item.

And finally the not so good things

Not everything was high flying. Just like any other version revision there are bugs that have managed to slip thru. First thing I noticed was during installation when I switched the DVD with my driver DVD, the installer failed to realize that the DVD changed. Second, on my laptop when I sent it to hibernate when I was at work and resumed at home, the network failed to connect until I restarted. In fact, until the restart Vista did not even realize that we were now plugged in.

Not to mention that I have already seem the blue screen thrice in the period of 2 days. Though that’s a problem that might be caused by my X-Fi drivers (which are still in beta). It was great, however, that the drivers installed without much issue.

Windows Vista is cute!

In conclusion, I know I would be switching to Vista. Having the free copy seriously helps making that decision However, I would keep on using it on the laptop that does not see that many applications, until some new versions of drivers and applications are out. Or may be some Vista patches. After that I can deactivate my laptop and activate my desktop

Next. Vista x64 on the desktop, but that has to wait

Look at what the basic used to look like and what it looks like now (via LonghornBlogs.com). Apparently their reason for changing was that there is too much grey. Not to mention that Aero is only available to people with a version beyond Windows Vista Basic and with a good graphics card. I guess they really wanted to move away from the grey as Mac OS X is just so huge on it.

On a better note, however, the new build 5472 is apparently faster and they finally fixed the problems with video playback. Some even say that it works better with the new nVidia drivers and that some games are actually running at reasonable speeds again.

Since it looked like it had some big jumps I started to read around about it. The one article that caught my eye was at LonghornBlogs.com. They mentioned how Build 5456 was not a direct decendent of Beta 2 that is publicly available. I have been personally using Build 5456 natively for the last 2 days. Granted most of those two days I was at work, but I did get to use quite a bit. It's better than Beta 2 people! We still have hope! Well for a Fall release that is

What was amazing about this build was that due to my delay I could just use AnyDVD 2.0.6.2 beta which works with Vista. Also I use the SoundBlaster X-Fi beta drivers for XP x64; works like a charm! Now if only I could get 5.1 sound instead of Stereo. Not to mention that my Avast! installed without a hitch and so did RemotelyAnywhere demo. However, I couldn't even get to the license page of RemotelyAnywhere, so that didn't really work. Acrobat installed without any problems and so did Firefox.

It's looking great! And it's sooooo pretty!

When the codename Longhorn project started up, I had little faith in the changes coming to the next version of Windows. It was basically gonna be yet another upgrade to Windows 2000. On their roadmap back then they had the codename Backcomb project which included a rewritten kernel which I was more interested in. However, probably becuz of all the delays and such Backcomb got scrapped and Longhorn (now Vista) got an upgraded kernel.

I have to admit that there are some features in the new OS that I am already looking forward to. It reminds me of when I was beta testing Windows 2000. I was so psyched about it that I actually used the betas up until the actual release. Vista still has about 7 months, but as time goes forward, and stability settles in, I’d actually switch over when I’m all comfortable about it.

1. Use WinRAR to decompress the installer.
2. Try installing the driver thru Device Manager (in my case it failed).
3. Run the installer in elevated mode.
4. Restart and cross your fingers.

That seemed to have worked. Now have I sound in Vista!

I can’t wait to play around with it. The idea of a 3D accelerated Desktop is like looking at OS X

Update: Screenshots are up. Check them out.