Windows Vista Beta 2: A Lamentation
I want to get out an old Win 98 SE CD and install it just for the pleasure of installing an operating system rather than an integrated media experience. But, nevertheless, the OS (all 3+ GB DVD of it) is installed and getting its buginess on all over my new system.
I scored a “2” on the Vista Performance Test, which is now the front-runner to replace the term-limited “cold swimming pool” in pride degradation. The memory appears to be my “bottleneck,” although I challenge anyone to explain why this is so when I am around 30% usage.
It’s a bear, but Media Center works well (I’m impressed they included it in the Beta 2 run). I would say I prefer the clean, boxier XP styling to the constant glut of alpha transparency overlays that make this system what it is. Alpha is the principal selling factor of the “Aero” experience (ironic as MS still fails to support alpha-transparent PNGs in IE). It is – just a bit – cool to see some desktop background through the title bars, but it sure ain’t doing my homework, son.
What really kills it is the WAF / GAF (Wife or Grandma Acceptance Factor); the, in all respects, zany filesystem breadcrumbs replacing the Zen-like calmness of a file path are enough to put even a veteran Windows wonk at ill-ease.
The UNIX replication of a /Users directory is nice, as Pictures, Music, and other old My Documents legacy garbage is now at the base profile (like, where “My Documents” and “Application Data” were stowed away in XP) rather than joining with your New American Model and Excel spreadsheets.
WMP 11 isn’t the vast, burning, sulfurous Hell I anticipated, as the MTV whoring is kept behind a license agreement that I can jovially and gladly refuse.
There are some nice touches. Of course, you want all file extensions showing all the time, but when you press F2 to rename a file it just highlights the name (to the left of the extension), so you don’t have to retype it if you just start typing. Nice.
The Windows+Tab feature (see Screenshot 3 below: “OMG!!!”) is pretty … pretty useless. But, hey, somebody had to catch up with Linux’s useless toys.
So, I’ll stop talking now. Screenshot time:
