Windows Vista beta 1

[Polychromic]

Okay, I've had Vista installed now for a day and a half. It's not as
crashy as the last build I tried. That's the good news.

The bad news it is even more bloated and slow. Hopefully this will change
when they recompile the parts with all the optimizations on and the
debugging bits off. I first left it on all the default settings to try
and see what new stuff there was. Erm, there's not any. Things are
changed around, but nothing that I would call an improvement. Then I
started turning off the crap to see if I could get it back to a usable
form.

Can someone explain how making a window translucent helps you use it? I
just don't get that. It clutters the foreground window and the windows
behind it are really too blurry to read. You can't click on the hidden
windows or type into them. Is there some reason not to just use alt-tab
or the taskbar to manage your windows? I don't get it.

IE7's tabbed browsing is oddly configured. With Firefox you have tabs
immediately above the page (at least that's how I have it) but with IE7
the tabs are above the menu bar. There doesn't appear to be a way to put
the tabs below the menu bar so it kind of anti-ergonomic. Weird.

Every window has a bar with history back and forward buttons and an
address field. Apparently no way to disable that. I spent some time
fiddling through the registry to see what settings could be directly
adjusted but couldn't find that. Perhaps there is a way to forcibly
remove the IE parts and that "feature" along with it.

Speaking of removing components, there is no sysoc.inf file and no Windows
Component Wizard (sysocmgr.exe) so right now I don't know how to remove
the various hidden components. If you look in Help, there is a page on
add/remove but it just says something like "Put content here". Hopefully
there will be something to replace the missing sysocmgr.exe.

Ah, I misspoke earlier. There is one thing I noticed that is an
improvement - in the registry some of the new keys contain both a current
value and a default value which will help you set things back if you make
too many changes. Seems like there should be a wizard feature in regedit
to access these changes and revert them but I didn't see one however. But
you can do it manually with regedit.

There is some new boot manager (bootmgr) that can replace ntldr and
ntdetect.com. It still apparently uses boot.ini. This new boot manager
appears to be optional because there is a place to instruct Vista to use
the old version instead. If you use the new one you will see a strange
c:\boot folder which has the old boot manager files in it. I tried
deleting that folder and had no problems booting so maybe that's just the
backup location.

There are a LOT of new services running. Not super easy to find out
however because in Admin Tools there is no longer an icon to access the
Services. You can still get there through Computer>Manage however I
wanted just a shortcut for services.msc on my desktop so I made one. :)

I was able to figure out some of new services and disabled a lot of them
without any ill effects, except one called something like User Experience
Service. When I nuked that, Vista quit loading my settings so I had to
re-enable it.

Ah, speaking of users, each user profile is now stored in
C:\Users\<username> instead of in C:\Documents and Settings\<username>.
All of them except the All Users profile that is. Yep, now there is a
C:\Documents and Settings folder AND a C:\Users folder. I think this
might just be an oversight. I hope it is. I always hated that long
Documents and Settings folder name and would rather have a nice short
Users instead.

Even though the WinFS database filesystem will no longer be a part of
Vista, I found that there was a program running called the Windows Search
Engine. I disabled it in Services. Why must they assume all users are
idiots? How about start with a lean and mean default configuration and
then turn on the search engine after the 2nd or 3rd time the user click
Start>Search? Well, thank god that stickykeys still requires 5 presses of
the shift key before it is activated.

I noticed there is a huge c:\build folder. I do mean huge - Vista is
2.4GB on the DVD and this folder is about 3GB. I'm hoping this is a
temporary part of the beta because Vista seemed to be using the binaries
in this folder instead of the ones in C:\Windows\System32. I think I'll
delete it and see if Vista dies.

In Windows Explorer, there no longer appears to be a way to disable active
mouse tracking. Vista defaults to requiring dbl-clicks to launch
files,etc but now the focus follows the mouse everywhere and each file is
underlined as if it were a hyperlink. Annoying.

However, the most annoying and brain damaged thing, the single design
change that will utterly prevent me from every buying or recommending
Vista is the absence of the List view in Explorer. Sure they've dumped
some new filtering and preview features into Explorer. You can now have
it show itty bitty thumbnails for every file instead of just file type
icons. There is a preview pane you can use and shift from the bottom of
the Explorer pane to the middle - whichever you like. There are ways to
group and stack files. But there is no simple, usable List view
available. Jim Allchin needs to be kicked in the nads if that was his
idea.

Oh well, perhaps Beta 2 will be better.

[Polychromic]

Post by Polychromic
Okay, I've had Vista installed now for a day and a half. It's not as
crashy as the last build I tried. That's the good news.
The bad news it is even more bloated and slow. Hopefully this will change
when they recompile the parts with all the optimizations on and the
debugging bits off. I first left it on all the default settings to try
and see what new stuff there was. Erm, there's not any. Things are
changed around, but nothing that I would call an improvement. Then I
started turning off the crap to see if I could get it back to a usable
form.
Can someone explain how making a window translucent helps you use it? I
just don't get that. It clutters the foreground window and the windows
behind it are really too blurry to read. You can't click on the hidden
windows or type into them. Is there some reason not to just use alt-tab
or the taskbar to manage your windows? I don't get it.
IE7's tabbed browsing is oddly configured. With Firefox you have tabs
immediately above the page (at least that's how I have it) but with IE7
the tabs are above the menu bar. There doesn't appear to be a way to put
the tabs below the menu bar so it kind of anti-ergonomic. Weird.
Every window has a bar with history back and forward buttons and an
address field. Apparently no way to disable that. I spent some time
fiddling through the registry to see what settings could be directly
adjusted but couldn't find that. Perhaps there is a way to forcibly
remove the IE parts and that "feature" along with it.
Speaking of removing components, there is no sysoc.inf file and no Windows
Component Wizard (sysocmgr.exe) so right now I don't know how to remove
the various hidden components. If you look in Help, there is a page on
add/remove but it just says something like "Put content here". Hopefully
there will be something to replace the missing sysocmgr.exe.
Ah, I misspoke earlier. There is one thing I noticed that is an
improvement - in the registry some of the new keys contain both a current
value and a default value which will help you set things back if you make
too many changes. Seems like there should be a wizard feature in regedit
to access these changes and revert them but I didn't see one however. But
you can do it manually with regedit.
There is some new boot manager (bootmgr) that can replace ntldr and
ntdetect.com. It still apparently uses boot.ini. This new boot manager
appears to be optional because there is a place to instruct Vista to use
the old version instead. If you use the new one you will see a strange
c:\boot folder which has the old boot manager files in it. I tried
deleting that folder and had no problems booting so maybe that's just the
backup location.
There are a LOT of new services running. Not super easy to find out
however because in Admin Tools there is no longer an icon to access the
Services. You can still get there through Computer>Manage however I
wanted just a shortcut for services.msc on my desktop so I made one. :)
I was able to figure out some of new services and disabled a lot of them
without any ill effects, except one called something like User Experience
Service. When I nuked that, Vista quit loading my settings so I had to
re-enable it.
Ah, speaking of users, each user profile is now stored in
C:\Users\<username> instead of in C:\Documents and Settings\<username>.
All of them except the All Users profile that is. Yep, now there is a
C:\Documents and Settings folder AND a C:\Users folder. I think this
might just be an oversight. I hope it is. I always hated that long
Documents and Settings folder name and would rather have a nice short
Users instead.
Even though the WinFS database filesystem will no longer be a part of
Vista, I found that there was a program running called the Windows Search
Engine. I disabled it in Services. Why must they assume all users are
idiots? How about start with a lean and mean default configuration and
then turn on the search engine after the 2nd or 3rd time the user click
Start>Search? Well, thank god that stickykeys still requires 5 presses of
the shift key before it is activated.
I noticed there is a huge c:\build folder. I do mean huge - Vista is
2.4GB on the DVD and this folder is about 3GB. I'm hoping this is a
temporary part of the beta because Vista seemed to be using the binaries
in this folder instead of the ones in C:\Windows\System32. I think I'll
delete it and see if Vista dies.
In Windows Explorer, there no longer appears to be a way to disable active
mouse tracking. Vista defaults to requiring dbl-clicks to launch
files,etc but now the focus follows the mouse everywhere and each file is
underlined as if it were a hyperlink. Annoying.
However, the most annoying and brain damaged thing, the single design
change that will utterly prevent me from every buying or recommending
Vista is the absence of the List view in Explorer. Sure they've dumped
some new filtering and preview features into Explorer. You can now have
it show itty bitty thumbnails for every file instead of just file type
icons. There is a preview pane you can use and shift from the bottom of
the Explorer pane to the middle - whichever you like. There are ways to
group and stack files. But there is no simple, usable List view
available. Jim Allchin needs to be kicked in the nads if that was his
idea.
Oh well, perhaps Beta 2 will be better.

Following up...

The C:\Documents and Settings folder is full of a bunch of nested folders
but they're all empty. Maybe they're there for some backwards
compatibility or perhaps they were just forgotten about. Nuked without
problems.

The huge C:\build folder - also nuked and no problems after rebooting. :)

[J. P. Morris]

Post by Polychromic
Okay, I've had Vista installed now for a day and a half. It's not as
crashy as the last build I tried. That's the good news.
The bad news it is even more bloated and slow. Hopefully this will change
when they recompile the parts with all the optimizations on and the
debugging bits off. I first left it on all the default settings to try
and see what new stuff there was. Erm, there's not any. Things are
changed around, but nothing that I would call an improvement. Then I
started turning off the crap to see if I could get it back to a usable
form.

Remember, children; it cost as much to make Vista as it did to put a man on
the moon! And what does Microsoft have to show for it? Windows XP service
pack 3 from what I've heard. Thanks for confirming it, Poly :-)

Post by Polychromic
Ah, speaking of users, each user profile is now stored in
C:\Users\<username> instead of in C:\Documents and Settings\<username>.
All of them except the All Users profile that is. Yep, now there is a
C:\Documents and Settings folder AND a C:\Users folder. I think this
might just be an oversight. I hope it is. I always hated that long
Documents and Settings folder name and would rather have a nice short
Users instead.

I see they're getting there. It should have been /home/, though.

Do symbolic links work yet? Can you unmount and mount USB mass-storage
devices without having to unplug the device and plug it back in yet? Or
have they been wasting their billions trying to make transparent windows
like in KDE or Enlightenment?

Post by Polychromic
But there is no simple, usable List view available. Jim Allchin needs to
be kicked in the nads if that was his idea.

Do you think that would do any good? Have you seen the man? He's more
undead than alive. White, pasty face and black, empty eyes.

Post by Polychromic
Oh well, perhaps Beta 2 will be better.

"Another fifty billion dollars down the drain." -- Walton Simons

[Polychromic]

Post by J. P. Morris
Remember, children; it cost as much to make Vista as it did to put a man on
the moon! And what does Microsoft have to show for it? Windows XP service
pack 3 from what I've heard. Thanks for confirming it, Poly :-)

Actually there will be a SP3 for XP probably. I know they are already
accumulating ideas for fixes to include in it that will not be in SP2
(which is already being tested).

Post by J. P. Morris

Post by Polychromic
Ah, speaking of users, each user profile is now stored in
C:\Users\<username> instead of in C:\Documents and Settings\<username>.
All of them except the All Users profile that is. Yep, now there is a
C:\Documents and Settings folder AND a C:\Users folder. I think this
might just be an oversight. I hope it is. I always hated that long
Documents and Settings folder name and would rather have a nice short
Users instead.

I see they're getting there. It should have been /home/, though.
Do symbolic links work yet?

Symbolic links or "call junctions" have worked since NTFS 3.0 in W2K but
there's not a simple way to create them from Explorer. These only work
for folders though. You can use Junction from Sysinternals.com to make
them from the command line:
http://www.sysinternals.com/Utilities/Junction.html
or this
http://www.rekenwonder.com/linkmagic.htm

If you want a link for a file you have to use "hard links" which have also
been a part of the NTFS 3.0 spec. Once again there is no software
included in XP for making them but you can install Services for Unix or
just use fsutil from W2K3 to create them.

Yes, fsutil IS included in Vista beta 1.

Post by J. P. Morris
Can you unmount and mount USB mass-storage
devices without having to unplug the device and plug it back in yet?

Um...you can do that since W2K as well. :)
Use the command line tool Diskpart. (This is how you can get around some
of the limits of the way a Windows Pre-installation Environment boot disc
works in order to use defraggers and partitioning programs.)

Post by J. P. Morris
Or have they been wasting their billions trying to make transparent windows
like in KDE or Enlightenment?

Now you're just getting nasty! Keep it up.

Post by J. P. Morris

Post by Polychromic
But there is no simple, usable List view available. Jim Allchin needs to
be kicked in the nads if that was his idea.

Do you think that would do any good? Have you seen the man? He's more
undead than alive. White, pasty face and black, empty eyes.

Yes, I met him in 2003 at the Tech-Ed conference here in Dallas. Not a
bad guy but he does kind of have those shark eyes.

Post by J. P. Morris

Post by Polychromic
Oh well, perhaps Beta 2 will be better.

"Another fifty billion dollars down the drain." -- Walton Simons

At least one company is supporting programmers.

[G***@gmail.com]

This is basically just a graphics update for Windows, it seems. Wasn't
the big thing about Longhorn/Vista the new WinFS file system? Now that
they dropped it, I see no incentive to upgrade.

[Optician Dragon]

Post by Polychromic

Post by J. P. Morris
Remember, children; it cost as much to make Vista as it did to put a man on
the moon! And what does Microsoft have to show for it? Windows XP service
pack 3 from what I've heard. Thanks for confirming it, Poly :-)

Actually there will be a SP3 for XP probably. I know they are already
accumulating ideas for fixes to include in it that will not be in SP2
(which is already being tested).

Sounds yummy! I hope they don't implement most of that crap in SP3.
Speaking of XP, should I not feel intruded upon with MS's new policy
on Windows Update of re-re-verifying that your copy of XP is Genuine
(ding!) MS? Haven't we already Activated and Registered? Now we have
to do it or no Windows Update, except Automatic Updates' Critical only
Updates.
I have read that some people have had problems with their OEM copies
validating properly because they have changed some hardware(evidently
enough to bother MS) and other have had no trouble at all.
Oh well, I figure some hackers will solve that sooner or later anyway.
-=UDIC=-
Optician Dragon
"That's the great thing about being dumb -
You don't feel bad when you don't come up with a good idea."
-"Frog" from Best Of The West

[Polychromic]

On Sat, 30 Jul 2005 12:06:03 GMT, Optician Dragon

Post by Optician Dragon
Sounds yummy! I hope they don't implement most of that crap in SP3.
Speaking of XP, should I not feel intruded upon with MS's new policy
on Windows Update of re-re-verifying that your copy of XP is Genuine
(ding!) MS? Haven't we already Activated and Registered? Now we have
to do it or no Windows Update, except Automatic Updates' Critical only
Updates.

I never do any other than the critical ones, but I do them manually
anyhow. If you ever do have to do a complete reinstall, it's nice to
already have all the post SP2 critical updates already available to patch
up your system with before going online. (You can prevent a million and
one reboots during the patching by using Qchain.)

Post by Optician Dragon
I have read that some people have had problems with their OEM copies
validating properly because they have changed some hardware(evidently
enough to bother MS) and other have had no trouble at all.
Oh well, I figure some hackers will solve that sooner or later anyway.

Or MS will covertly release VLK version of Vista into warez circles to
further insure their market penetration, again.

[unknown]

On Sat, 30 Jul 2005 12:06:03 GMT, Optician Dragon

Post by Optician Dragon

Post by Polychromic

Post by J. P. Morris
Remember, children; it cost as much to make Vista as it did to put a man on
the moon! And what does Microsoft have to show for it? Windows XP service
pack 3 from what I've heard. Thanks for confirming it, Poly :-)

Actually there will be a SP3 for XP probably. I know they are already
accumulating ideas for fixes to include in it that will not be in SP2
(which is already being tested).

Sounds yummy! I hope they don't implement most of that crap in SP3.
Speaking of XP, should I not feel intruded upon with MS's new policy
on Windows Update of re-re-verifying that your copy of XP is Genuine
(ding!) MS? Haven't we already Activated and Registered? Now we have
to do it or no Windows Update, except Automatic Updates' Critical only
Updates.

When did they start that bull? I only get the critical ones so I
never noticed. (And I too download & install them manually. It only
took one blast of Blaster *while* trying to download the upgrade for
me to start doing that.) I know it wanted to verify everything when I
tried to get that beta spyware thing of theirs. It wanted entirely
too much information out of me, so I finally said, screw it I've
already got two of these things.


--

Erimess Dragon
-==(UDIC)==-

d++e+NT++Om UK!1!2!3!A!L!
U+uCuFuG+++uLB+uA+ nC+nH+nP+nS++nT-xa2

This is the comfort of everyone: That tho' they
may be said to die, yet their love and devotion
are, in best sense, ever present because immortal.
~William Penn
In memory of my father, 1 Jan 05

[J. P. Morris]

Post by Polychromic

Post by J. P. Morris
Remember, children; it cost as much to make Vista as it did to put a man on
the moon! And what does Microsoft have to show for it? Windows XP service
pack 3 from what I've heard. Thanks for confirming it, Poly :-)

Actually there will be a SP3 for XP probably. I know they are already
accumulating ideas for fixes to include in it that will not be in SP2
(which is already being tested).

Yes, I found that afterwards. SP4 then!

Post by Polychromic

Post by J. P. Morris
Do symbolic links work yet?

Symbolic links or "call junctions" have worked since NTFS 3.0 in W2K but
there's not a simple way to create them from Explorer.

Well, that's the thing, isn't it? I want to be able to use 'ln' from the
shell. It would prevent so many of the bodges when we have to use at work.

Can you establish whether a file is a true file or a symlink?

Post by Polychromic
These only work
for folders though. You can use Junction from Sysinternals.com to make
http://www.sysinternals.com/Utilities/Junction.html
or this http://www.rekenwonder.com/linkmagic.htm

Cool. I'll check that out.

Post by Polychromic

Post by J. P. Morris
Can you unmount and mount USB mass-storage
devices without having to unplug the device and plug it back in yet?

Um...you can do that since W2K as well. :)

XP won't, and that's what we're using at work. The multiple card-reader I
use at work has to shut down the entire device just to unmount one single
volume. It so the same thing at home, and it drives me insane when Linux
can do it and Windows can't.

Post by Polychromic
Use the command line tool Diskpart.

I'll try that and see if it does what I need.

Post by Polychromic

Post by J. P. Morris
Or have they been wasting their billions trying to make transparent
windows like in KDE or Enlightenment?

Now you're just getting nasty! Keep it up.

[Polychromic]

Post by J. P. Morris
Well, that's the thing, isn't it? I want to be able to use 'ln' from the
shell. It would prevent so many of the bodges when we have to use at work.
Can you establish whether a file is a true file or a symlink?

Don't know. I haven't tried them out other than reading about them.

[Samurai]

Quoth Polychromic <***@comcast.net>:
...

Why must they assume all users are idiots?

That answered the one question I really had about Vista -- does it have
that fabled 'I'm not stupid' button? Apparently not. >:( That, and
particularly the absence of list view you mentioned, are showstoppers,
as far as I'm concerned.

[unknown]

Post by Polychromic
Can someone explain how making a window translucent helps you use it? I
just don't get that. It clutters the foreground window and the windows
behind it are really too blurry to read. You can't click on the hidden
windows or type into them. Is there some reason not to just use alt-tab
or the taskbar to manage your windows? I don't get it.

Not only don't I get it, I don't get it. You mean a window that you
can *see through* to what's underneath??? That sounds annoying as
hell.

Post by Polychromic
IE7's tabbed browsing is oddly configured. With Firefox you have tabs
immediately above the page (at least that's how I have it) but with IE7
the tabs are above the menu bar. There doesn't appear to be a way to put
the tabs below the menu bar so it kind of anti-ergonomic. Weird.

Please tell me tabs are an option. (They should be, but this is MS
we're talking about.)

Post by Polychromic
Every window has a bar with history back and forward buttons and an
address field. Apparently no way to disable that.

Yup, they're trying to turn Windows into the internet. I'm waiting
for when there is no separate IE at all.

Post by Polychromic
There are a LOT of new services running. Not super easy to find out
however because in Admin Tools there is no longer an icon to access the
Services.

What a shame. That was one of the few things about XP that I thought
was an improvement. Now it looks like they want to make it difficult
to get there.

Post by Polychromic
You can still get there through Computer>Manage however I
wanted just a shortcut for services.msc on my desktop so I made one. :)
I was able to figure out some of new services and disabled a lot of them
without any ill effects, except one called something like User Experience
Service. When I nuked that, Vista quit loading my settings so I had to
re-enable it.

User Experience Service??? That even *sounds* retarded.

Post by Polychromic
Ah, speaking of users, each user profile is now stored in
C:\Users\<username> instead of in C:\Documents and Settings\<username>.
All of them except the All Users profile that is. Yep, now there is a
C:\Documents and Settings folder AND a C:\Users folder. I think this
might just be an oversight. I hope it is. I always hated that long
Documents and Settings folder name and would rather have a nice short
Users instead.

I'd rather not be forced into having users at all. I've always HATED
that. That whole folder is one big pain in the butt to begin with,
but pulling All Users and separating it will just make it a bigger
pain in the butt. I don't suppose they've added an option to turn the
damn thing off, have they? (Or really, it should be off, with an
option to turn it on.)

But you have a point -- a shorter name is better. And at least it's a
*logical* name. Pretty much to the point.

Post by Polychromic
Well, thank god that stickykeys still requires 5 presses of
the shift key before it is activated.

You know, those stupid stickykeys ruined my pinball game the other
night. I normally don't even play that kind of stuff, but it happened
to come with a box 'o games I got, and I've always been good at
pinball so what the heck. And it uses the shift key for the bumpers.
So guess what....

Post by Polychromic
However, the most annoying and brain damaged thing, the single design
change that will utterly prevent me from every buying or recommending
Vista is the absence of the List view in Explorer. Sure they've dumped
some new filtering and preview features into Explorer. You can now have
it show itty bitty thumbnails for every file instead of just file type
icons. There is a preview pane you can use and shift from the bottom of
the Explorer pane to the middle - whichever you like. There are ways to
group and stack files. But there is no simple, usable List view
available. Jim Allchin needs to be kicked in the nads if that was his
idea.

Yeah, not too happy about that one. I actually usually have the icons
on for most folders, but the list comes in handy for certain things.
(Mostly folders where the list of stuff is big.) I hate the
thumbnails and I actually hate the grouping stuff. I wasn't too happy
the first time I went into My Computer and everything was grouped, but
that was before I figured out the setting options. One of these days
they're going to have it totally ruined, and create so many options
that simple just won't exist at all anymore.


--

Erimess Dragon
-==(UDIC)==-

d++e+NT++Om UK!1!2!3!A!L!
U+uCuFuG+++uLB+uA+ nC+nH+nP+nS++nT-xa2

This is the comfort of everyone: That tho' they
may be said to die, yet their love and devotion
are, in best sense, ever present because immortal.
~William Penn
In memory of my father, 1 Jan 05

[Polychromic]

Post by unknown
Please tell me tabs are an option. (They should be, but this is MS
we're talking about.)

Yes, you can turn them off. Anyhow, everyone should be using Firefox
instead.

Post by unknown
I'd rather not be forced into having users at all. I've always HATED
that. That whole folder is one big pain in the butt to begin with,
but pulling All Users and separating it will just make it a bigger
pain in the butt. I don't suppose they've added an option to turn the
damn thing off, have they? (Or really, it should be off, with an
option to turn it on.)

I'd have to disagree with that last comment. Too many brain damaged users
out there for them to all be running with admin rights by default. That's
how viruses and stuff spread in the DOS days of Windows. (They spread
more through loopholes and bad security programming now days.)

Post by unknown
Yeah, not too happy about that one. I actually usually have the icons
on for most folders, but the list comes in handy for certain things.
(Mostly folders where the list of stuff is big.) I hate the
thumbnails and I actually hate the grouping stuff. I wasn't too happy
the first time I went into My Computer and everything was grouped, but
that was before I figured out the setting options. One of these days
they're going to have it totally ruined, and create so many options
that simple just won't exist at all anymore.

Now they're going for the "everyone has a new video card so let's make the
thumbnailed icon view the default" method of bloat. You can sort of turn
some stuff off but there really needs to be a way to set it all back to
the standard views of NT4/W95.

[unknown]

Post by Polychromic

Post by unknown
Please tell me tabs are an option. (They should be, but this is MS
we're talking about.)

Yes, you can turn them off. Anyhow, everyone should be using Firefox
instead.

Oh, I was only thinking about work. It defaulted to tabs when I got
forced into temporarily using Netscape, and there's one page that
automatically refreshes to update it, and every time it would jump
over to that tab when I was working with someone. Very annoying. I
messed with the tab settings and never quite found the right setting
that worked... but since it was temporary I didn't waste a lot of time
on it. Actually, if not for that auto refresh, tabs for work would be
great. (Hey, I can uninstall that Netscape now!)

Post by Polychromic

Post by unknown
I'd rather not be forced into having users at all. I've always HATED
that. That whole folder is one big pain in the butt to begin with,
but pulling All Users and separating it will just make it a bigger
pain in the butt. I don't suppose they've added an option to turn the
damn thing off, have they? (Or really, it should be off, with an
option to turn it on.)

I'd have to disagree with that last comment. Too many brain damaged users
out there for them to all be running with admin rights by default. That's
how viruses and stuff spread in the DOS days of Windows. (They spread
more through loopholes and bad security programming now days.)

I'm a bit confused over that statement. I by default have admin
rights with XP, even with the users. So all the brain damaged users
are going to have them anyway.

Post by Polychromic

Post by unknown
Yeah, not too happy about that one. I actually usually have the icons
on for most folders, but the list comes in handy for certain things.
(Mostly folders where the list of stuff is big.) I hate the
thumbnails and I actually hate the grouping stuff. I wasn't too happy
the first time I went into My Computer and everything was grouped, but
that was before I figured out the setting options. One of these days
they're going to have it totally ruined, and create so many options
that simple just won't exist at all anymore.

Now they're going for the "everyone has a new video card so let's make the
thumbnailed icon view the default" method of bloat.

Being an extremely practical person, this makes me nuts. Video cards
are for games. :-) I don't need pretty thumbnails. Icons are for
clicking on so I can get where I want to go and run things, not for
hanging on the wall as decoration.

And really, I don't mind them doing stuff like that, if only they'd
leave the choice there for people's different tastes. I get most
upset when my options are stolen from me.


--

Erimess Dragon
-==(UDIC)==-

d++e+NT++Om UK!1!2!3!A!L!
U+uCuFuG+++uLB+uA+ nC+nH+nP+nS++nT-xa2

This is the comfort of everyone: That tho' they
may be said to die, yet their love and devotion
are, in best sense, ever present because immortal.
~William Penn
In memory of my father, 1 Jan 05

[Polychromic]

Post by unknown
Oh, I was only thinking about work. It defaulted to tabs when I got
forced into temporarily using Netscape, and there's one page that
automatically refreshes to update it, and every time it would jump
over to that tab when I was working with someone. Very annoying. I
messed with the tab settings and never quite found the right setting
that worked... but since it was temporary I didn't waste a lot of time
on it. Actually, if not for that auto refresh, tabs for work would be
great. (Hey, I can uninstall that Netscape now!)

Well, you can always just disable Java and Javascript or use a decent
proxy filter like Proxomitron or Privoxy.

Post by unknown

Post by Polychromic
I'd have to disagree with that last comment. Too many brain damaged users
out there for them to all be running with admin rights by default. That's
how viruses and stuff spread in the DOS days of Windows. (They spread
more through loopholes and bad security programming now days.)

I'm a bit confused over that statement. I by default have admin
rights with XP, even with the users. So all the brain damaged users
are going to have them anyway.

It depends on how your XP is installed. Lots of OEMs (Dell, HP,
Gateway/eMachine) set up the machines they ship so that the users must
reboot the computer into safe mode to access an account with Admin rights.
If you install XP yourself, then I suppose MS figured you'd be capable
enough to run as Admin or to know you should create user accounts separate
from the Admin account.

Post by unknown
Being an extremely practical person, this makes me nuts. Video cards
are for games. :-) I don't need pretty thumbnails. Icons are for
clicking on so I can get where I want to go and run things, not for
hanging on the wall as decoration.

Filesystem thumbnails are useful for sorting one's .ico collection or
.jpgs but not as useful as just doing that with a graphics program. I
turn off 8.3 filename creation and lastaccesstime stamps for my NTFS
drives, do they think I want to wait for the filesystem to crawl through
all the files in a folder updating the thumbnails every time I click on
that folder?

Post by unknown
And really, I don't mind them doing stuff like that, if only they'd
leave the choice there for people's different tastes. I get most
upset when my options are stolen from me.

Well, you can turn off some of it but it's defaulting to that now so 99%
of the sheeple will just leave it that way (and bad mouth Vista as being
slower that their first W95 machine).

[unknown]

Post by Polychromic

Post by unknown

Post by Polychromic
I'd have to disagree with that last comment. Too many brain damaged users
out there for them to all be running with admin rights by default. That's
how viruses and stuff spread in the DOS days of Windows. (They spread
more through loopholes and bad security programming now days.)

I'm a bit confused over that statement. I by default have admin
rights with XP, even with the users. So all the brain damaged users
are going to have them anyway.

It depends on how your XP is installed. Lots of OEMs (Dell, HP,
Gateway/eMachine) set up the machines they ship so that the users must
reboot the computer into safe mode to access an account with Admin rights.

Really? Interesting, since mine's a Dell OEM and I don't have to do
that. Admittedly, fairly soon after I got it, I wiped it out,
partitioned and reintalled. But that took me at least a couple of
weeks and I know I was playing around everywhere during that time, and
since I was trying to get a feel for XP, I mean I was all over playing
with everything. I don't recall being blocked out of anything.

I hope Dell is not goint the way of those others... that would be sad.
(I'd hate to have to learn how to actually build one on my own.) I
recently worked with someone on her Compaq. Horrid experience. (I do
believe I will have to chalk that up to being worse than Packard
Bell.) I came out of that eternally grateful for not having one of
those "restore" disks.

Post by Polychromic
If you install XP yourself, then I suppose MS figured you'd be capable
enough to run as Admin or to know you should create user accounts separate
from the Admin account.

I'm not sure I'd count on that... I've known too many people who
could manage to install Windows, especially with those nice bootable
CDs....




--

Erimess Dragon
-==(UDIC)==-

d++e+NT++Om UK!1!2!3!A!L!
U+uCuFuG+++uLB+uA+ nC+nH+nP+nS++nT-xa2

This is the comfort of everyone: That tho' they
may be said to die, yet their love and devotion
are, in best sense, ever present because immortal.
~William Penn
In memory of my father, 1 Jan 05

[Cape Dweller]

Post by unknown
forced into temporarily using Netscape, and there's one page that
automatically refreshes to update it, and every time it would jump over to
that tab when I was working with someone. Very annoying. I messed with
the tab settings and never quite found the right setting that worked...

I know this is pointless since you're not using Netscape any more, but
there's an option to "load new pages in the background" or somesuch that
stops that from happening. In Firefox if "select new tabs opened from
links" is unchecked then you can open a bunch of new tabs from a website
and they'll open in the background so you can finish reading the current
tab before moving over to them.

I'm trying to find a way to get a tabbed browser working at work but
several tools we use need IE. I think I'll give Avant another try,
although I found its interface really peculiar.

[Polychromic]

Post by Cape Dweller
stops that from happening. In Firefox if "select new tabs opened from
links" is unchecked then you can open a bunch of new tabs from a website
and they'll open in the background so you can finish reading the current
tab before moving over to them.

That's the default for Firefox, I think. While most of my browsing I just
use four bookmarked folders on my "personal toolbar" (so one middle click
opens all the bookmarks inside each), when I do actually click on links I
use the middle mouse button aka the wheel to click so they open into tabs
in the background. It's a nice way to open sites you intend to read
without losing your spot on the current page. The awkwardness of the way
IE6 and those before it handled "open this link in a new window" was
always my biggest peeve with IE.

Post by Cape Dweller
I'm trying to find a way to get a tabbed browser working at work but
several tools we use need IE. I think I'll give Avant another try,
although I found its interface really peculiar.

Can't you install the IE7 beta? It's got tabs.

[Cape Dweller]

Post by Polychromic

Post by Cape Dweller
I'm trying to find a way to get a tabbed browser working at work but
several tools we use need IE. I think I'll give Avant another try,
although I found its interface really peculiar.

Can't you install the IE7 beta? It's got tabs.

I doubt it... I only have access to "Documents & Settings/36932" so any
thing I install has to be there. I didn't realize that IE7 beta was a
separate download. I've been using Maxthon for a couple days and it's
pretty good - much more intuitive than Avant (but not as much as Firefox).

[unknown]

Post by Cape Dweller

Post by Polychromic

Post by Cape Dweller
I'm trying to find a way to get a tabbed browser working at work but
several tools we use need IE. I think I'll give Avant another try,
although I found its interface really peculiar.

Can't you install the IE7 beta? It's got tabs.

I doubt it... I only have access to "Documents & Settings/36932"

You're nothing but a number at work?


--

Erimess Dragon
-==(UDIC)==-

d++e+NT++Om UK!1!2!3!A!L!
U+uCuFuG+++uLB+uA+ nC+nH+nP+nS++nT-xa2

This is the comfort of everyone: That tho' they
may be said to die, yet their love and devotion
are, in best sense, ever present because immortal.
~William Penn
In memory of my father, 1 Jan 05

[Cape Dweller]

Post by unknown

Post by Cape Dweller
I doubt it... I only have access to "Documents & Settings/36932"

You're nothing but a number at work?

'A' number? certainly not! There are at least a dozen numbers that
represent me.

[Ashikaga]

Eek! Polychromic wrote:
<snip>

Post by Polychromic
Can someone explain how making a window translucent helps you use it? I
just don't get that. It clutters the foreground window and the windows
behind it are really too blurry to read. You can't click on the hidden
windows or type into them. Is there some reason not to just use alt-tab
or the taskbar to manage your windows? I don't get it.

I think they'll eventually tweak the alpha to make it more usable. There
should be an option to turn it off. I think it's some programmer's idea to
use 3D accelerator's alpha channel albeit how unnecessary it is for a
typical user. Though I can see a good use of it because I open several
windows at once and my monitor size isn't large enough for accomodating all
the opened windows (but then that's what Windows Explorer is for).

Post by Polychromic
IE7's tabbed browsing is oddly configured. With Firefox you have tabs
immediately above the page (at least that's how I have it) but with IE7
the tabs are above the menu bar. There doesn't appear to be a way to put
the tabs below the menu bar so it kind of anti-ergonomic. Weird.

I think the best way to put tabs is to the right. Far right and next to
the scroll bar (and put in a way that's more like index tabs in a reference
book). At least that's where I'd like them to be. Firefox's way isn't the
most convenient either.

<snip>

Post by Polychromic
In Windows Explorer, there no longer appears to be a way to disable active
mouse tracking. Vista defaults to requiring dbl-clicks to launch
files,etc but now the focus follows the mouse everywhere and each file is
underlined as if it were a hyperlink. Annoying.

I hate active mouse tracking. That's among the first things I change. I
prefer double clicking. I am okay with hovering and showing my cursor is
highlighting something, but I don't like it serving as the first click.

Post by Polychromic
However, the most annoying and brain damaged thing, the single design
change that will utterly prevent me from every buying or recommending
Vista is the absence of the List view in Explorer.

If enough people complained, they'll put it back. I agree, that's totally
inconvenient. I usually use icon view, but when the folder has too much
stuff, usually it's faster to find stuff when the list view is turned on.

<snip>

Post by Polychromic
Oh well, perhaps Beta 2 will be better.

I think it probably will. Usually when things are still in their
development stage needs time to mature a little bit.

[Lost Dragon]

Post by Polychromic
Oh well, perhaps Beta 2 will be better.

Are the limited user accounts more flexible now? The limited user
accounts for XP are almost worthless.

[Polychromic]

Post by Lost Dragon

Post by Polychromic
Oh well, perhaps Beta 2 will be better.

Are the limited user accounts more flexible now? The limited user
accounts for XP are almost worthless.

No such user group in Vista - I guess it is really Vista Pro although I
don't know if they will actually be having Pro and Home versions this
time. There are some new user groups though - Trusted Installer seems to
be one you could assign to let people install games or whatever without
giving away full admin rights.

[Lost Dragon]

Post by Polychromic
time. There are some new user groups though - Trusted Installer seems to
be one you could assign to let people install games or whatever without
giving away full admin rights.

Hmm.. Trusted installer. That might be worth it right there.

In an otherwise locked down account, I'd like to be able to give
administrative privileges to individual programs without having to enter
in the admin password each time it's run.

[JP Morris]

Post by Polychromic

Post by Lost Dragon

Post by Polychromic
Oh well, perhaps Beta 2 will be better.

Are the limited user accounts more flexible now? The limited user
accounts for XP are almost worthless.

No such user group in Vista - I guess it is really Vista Pro although I

THAT's what's wrong with the name. I've been trying to put my finger on it for
ages now. This is Vista Pro:

http://www.andromedasoftware.com/cd213.htm

Post by Polychromic
don't know if they will actually be having Pro and Home versions this
time. There are some new user groups though - Trusted Installer seems to
be one you could assign to let people install games or whatever without
giving away full admin rights.

[Polychromic]

Post by JP Morris

Post by Polychromic
No such user group in Vista - I guess it is really Vista Pro although I

THAT's what's wrong with the name. I've been trying to put my finger on it for
http://www.andromedasoftware.com/cd213.htm

Hehe, I remember using that (well an older version) before Windows 95 was
released. I think that calling Vista VP would be a natural transition
from XP but I don't get the impression that there will be home and pro
versions. I think they will just go with one version for the desktop like
Windows 2000. Of course there will be a server edition, Windows Server
System. I do wonder why they just don't go with release year numbering in
the names though. It clarifies everything. When you say Windows 2000 or
Windows 2006 or whatever, there is no confusion.

[Optician Dragon]

Post by Polychromic

Post by JP Morris

Post by Polychromic
No such user group in Vista - I guess it is really Vista Pro although I

THAT's what's wrong with the name. I've been trying to put my finger on it for
http://www.andromedasoftware.com/cd213.htm

Hehe, I remember using that (well an older version) before Windows 95 was
released. I think that calling Vista VP would be a natural transition
from XP but I don't get the impression that there will be home and pro
versions. I think they will just go with one version for the desktop like
Windows 2000. Of course there will be a server edition, Windows Server
System. I do wonder why they just don't go with release year numbering in
the names though. It clarifies everything. When you say Windows 2000 or
Windows 2006 or whatever, there is no confusion.

Yeah, they should just move down a letter and call it YQ.
-=UDIC=-
Optician Dragon
"That's the great thing about being dumb -
You don't feel bad when you don't come up with a good idea."
-"Frog" from Best Of The West

[Samurai]

Quoth Polychromic <***@comcast.net>:
...

I do wonder why they just don't go with release year numbering in the
names though. It clarifies everything. When you say Windows 2000 or
Windows 2006 or whatever, there is no confusion.

Ah, but everyone wants to know the product name ahead of time, and then
you're stuck with a release date you have to meet. Wouldn't Vista have
been 2005 if that were the case?

[J. P. Morris]

Post by Polychromic

Post by JP Morris

Post by Polychromic
No such user group in Vista - I guess it is really Vista Pro although I

THAT's what's wrong with the name. I've been trying to put my finger on it for
http://www.andromedasoftware.com/cd213.htm

Hehe, I remember using that (well an older version) before Windows 95 was
released.

I was using version 1, which came free on a cover disk about 12 years ago :)

Post by Polychromic
I think that calling Vista VP would be a natural transition
from XP but I don't get the impression that there will be home and pro
versions. I think they will just go with one version for the desktop like
Windows 2000. Of course there will be a server edition, Windows Server
System. I do wonder why they just don't go with release year numbering in
the names though.

I suspect they're embarrassed at the delay. How did it go? Looking at it
solely from the desktop point of view:

Windows 90 (3.0)
Windows 92 (3.1) 2 years, major update
Windows 95 3 years, total overhaul
Windows 98 4 years
Windows 99 (Me) 1 year
Windows 2000 1 year, total overhaul
Windows 2001 (XP) 1 year, minor rev
Windows 2006 (LH/V) 5 years (or 6 if it slips again), minor update

Post by Polychromic
It clarifies everything. When you say Windows 2000 or
Windows 2006 or whatever, there is no confusion.

[Polychromic]

Post by J. P. Morris
I was using version 1, which came free on a cover disk about 12 years ago :)

That's where I got mine too. From a British magazine cover disk.

Post by J. P. Morris

Post by Polychromic
I think that calling Vista VP would be a natural transition
from XP but I don't get the impression that there will be home and pro
versions. I think they will just go with one version for the desktop like
Windows 2000. Of course there will be a server edition, Windows Server
System. I do wonder why they just don't go with release year numbering in
the names though.

I suspect they're embarrassed at the delay. How did it go? Looking at it
Windows 90 (3.0)
Windows 92 (3.1) 2 years, major update
Windows 95 3 years, total overhaul
Windows 98 4 years
Windows 99 (Me) 1 year
Windows 2000 1 year, total overhaul

Yes, but this should be 4 years since it was a upgrade of NT4.0 not of ME.

Post by J. P. Morris
Windows 2001 (XP) 1 year, minor rev
Windows 2006 (LH/V) 5 years (or 6 if it slips again), minor update

As much as Vista is similar to XP it seems very much of the underpinnings
have changed so I wouldn't call this a minor update. It's more of a
complete rewrite with minor things still being similar to XP.

I still can't get my Audigy2 to work with Vista. If that would work, I
would try to spend 100% of my computer time using it instead of XP. Still
no way to get anything resembling the List view either. It is SOOO
annoying when the files sort sideways...