I recently installed Vista, the latest Microsoft operating system on my laptop this week. Since it was just recently released to the public I thought it would be a perfect topic for our newsletter.

Take a look - Picture of Windows Vista and IE 7

Windows Vista is the Microsoft operating system that will now ship with most new Windows computers rather than Windows XP that was initially released in late 2001. I have been running Windows XP Tablet edition on my laptop since I purchased it 3 months ago and it has been running flawlessly. I had no compelling reason to upgrade to Vista, but since I am a big geek and had a free version I figured I would give it a shot.

Installation

I decided to upgrade my Windows XP operating system rather than completely wiping my computer and installing Vista fresh. When I popped in the Vista CD it diagnosed my computer to see if it would be a good fit for Vista, and it failed the first time around. Vista listed 3 programs I had installed that it wanted me to remove before continuing with the upgrade. I followed the instructions and removed: Norton Antivirus, Norton Ghost, and Daemon Tools. After removing those applications I re-ran the Vista installer and it began the upgrade with no fuss. I am not sure how long it takes to install Vista from scratch but upgrading my computer took about 3 hours. I started the install and checked in on it every 45 minutes. It restarted a half dozen times but required very little interaction from me during the install.

After the install - Updating Drivers

My laptop has a lot of hi-tech features like the Tablet PC screen, mouse gesture touch pad, and biometric finger print scanner. After upgrading to Vista none of those features worked very well. Fortunately, my laptop manufacturer, Fujitsu, had an easy to find page with all the updates I needed to download for Vista. I downloaded 5 updates from the Fujitsu website and Voila! I was now 100% up and running on Vista.

The Visuals

The interface for Vista is quite attractive. Some people have complained that the window transitions get in their way of getting work done, but I didn’t feel that way at all. I was originally afraid there would be too many effects and it would be a distraction, but the window transitions provide visual cues to what is happening when interacting with the computer, which I liked.

The Alt+Tab feature received a facelift in Vista. Try holding down the ‘Alt’ key and while holding tap the ‘Tab’ key a few times. Alt+Tab is an easy way to change the program you are working with without using the mouse. The new Alt+Tab shows a small thumbnail of the window now, similar to the Windows PowerToy that is available for Windows XP.

The [Window key] + Tab puts the display in the ‘switch between windows’ mode that you see in the commercials. This is where the windows slide sideways and you can shuffle through them. This effect is cute, but I still prefer Alt+Tab.

Start Menu - Picture of the start menu

The start menu is very similar to Windows XP. However, one feature that has been improved is the search. After clicking the start menu (or pressing the ‘Windows’ key) you can start typing and it will find the program, file, or command you want to run. Very cool.

Sidebar - Picture of the Sidebar

Vista now ships with a feature similar to Yahoo! Widgets or the Mac OS X dashboard. You can add useful applications, called ‘gadgets’, directly to your desktop. I installed a few Gadgets that allow quick access to my favorite programs, weather forecasts, date and time, and two different graphs of my CPU and RAM utilization. Pressing [window key] + spacebar will bring your sidebar to the foreground so that it’s visible on top of any other programs or windows.

Windows Explorer - Picture of the new Explorer

In Windows XP, clicking on “My Computer” or right-clicking on the start menu “explore” would bring up the Windows file explorer to browse your file system.  Microsoft overhauled the explorer big time in Vista.   I am starting to get use to it, but I fear it might be a difficult transition for some.  One benefit is the breadcrumbs where you would normally see your location in your file system.  You can click on the arrows and easily access other folders in the directories.  I usually use the “details” view but the new icon views are pretty good for browsing through images and folder directories.  There is easy access to burn a CD, email a file, start a slide show, and rate and tag files with descriptions (which is useful for organizing and searching).  One last change I will note is that Vista places checkboxes next to every file in the explorer.  Instead of “Ctrl + clicking” on files to select multiple files you can now use the checkboxes next to each file to perform multiple selections.  I have a feeling this feature will grow on me and I’ll end up loving it.

Photo Gallery - Picture of the Photo Gallery

The photo gallery application allows you to organize, tag and rate your photos. It appears to be really good but I do not find myself using programs like this very often. Most people I know that do a lot of photo organizing really like Google’s “Picasa” program.

Windows Media Player 11 - Picture of WMP 11

The new media player is better than any previous version on Microsoft’s Media Player, I don’t keep all my music organized in ITunes so I tend to use WMP when I am listing to mp3’s or soma.fm Internet radio. Windows Media Player 11 is also available for Windows XP as a free download from Microsoft’s website.

Windows Movie Maker

I have a bit of experience using various video editing programs and Microsoft’s Movie Maker is about as easy as it can get. Web Ascender actually did all of the capturing and editing for our website videos using Microsoft’s Movie Maker.

Personal Organization Tools

I currently use Microsoft Office 2007 for all my email, contacts, and scheduling needs.  However, Vista includes some really nice applications such as Windows Mail, Windows Contacts, and Windows Calendar.  All of these are very easy to use and are not separate downloads, which is nice.



Tablet PC

Vista is perfect for tablet PC users. The tablet features have been noticeably better for me. The tablet PC input panel appears to be more accurate, as well as more convenient to access.

User Access Control

The Mac commercials did a great job of portraying the Vista user access controls.

“PC is pointing out Vistas flaws, Cancel or Allow.”

Whenever your computer attempts to do something that requires administrator privileges it will prompt you with a message containing the program that is attempting to access the system and whether you would like to “Cancel” or “Allow” the operation. This was annoying for the first few days while I was setting up my system, but I have gone a few days without seeing it now. It’s possible to disable this feature, but I’d recommend keeping it turned on.

So far Vista has been great! Was it worth waiting 5 years for? No. Would I run out and buy it for 200 bucks to upgrade my current Windows XP version? Probably not. However, I do like it overall and I would definitely recommend it with a new computer or laptop purchase.