As much as I didn’t want to like Vista, after installing it a couple of months ago I don’t want to go back to Windows XP. At first it felt like Microsoft had slapped a more modern skin on top of Vista. But the more I play around with it, I see they have made some subtle changes in many areas that add up to an improved experience. The best thing I can say about any OS is that it doesn’t get in the way of my work or play. After some tweaking to alerts and such, Vista behaves quite well. Out of the box I’m certain some users will be put off by alerts that constantly ask for your permission before completing seemingly harmless tasks such as installing the program you just double clicked on to start the install. Do all those alerts make for a safer computer? Probably so but I wonder if tossing out so many alerts will desensitize users to the point they just ignore the alerts and click “yes” to everything? If you’re used to running your system with Administrative privileges you’ll probably end up disabling “User Account Control” in the Windows Security section of Control Panel. Once I did that, Vista stayed out of my hair and let me work like I’m used to.
I won’t get into all the Vista features since they described in detail on sites such as Paul Thurrott’s Supersite. But I especially like the “Backup and Restore Center” where you can take an image of your machine or specific folders. This is a much appreciated feature and will certainly take a bite out of programs such as Symantec Ghost that people have relied on for personal backup duties. Control Panel is so packed full of utilities that it’s a bit overwhelming at first, but there’s an amazing array of tools there for the taking. Oh, I can can’t forget that you can now schedule disk maintenance such as defragging. Finally!
When Vista finally is available for consumers I will be upgrading our two PCs the Ultimate Edition.
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