# Windows Vista's Revolutionary New Features



## Randy Singer (Jan 8, 2006)

Earlier this week, Bill Gates gave the Keynote Address at CES.  In an effort to gear people up for the gadget wizardry they were about to experience on the show floor, Bill touted the "revolutionary new features" of the upcoming Windows Vista.  Baring any further setbacks, Vista is scheduled to be released near the end of 2006.  Here are a couple of fantastic videos outlining those revolutionary new features.

http://maclive.net/sid/134

http://maclive.net/sid/135


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## mdnky (Jan 8, 2006)

Why am I not surprised?


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## Veljo (Jan 8, 2006)

Looks great!


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## senne (Jan 8, 2006)

I had the same video in my head when i was watching that Microsoft's keynote.


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## iball (Jan 8, 2006)

Basically, Bill G is saying "wonk wonk wonk" like Charlie Brown's teacher.
I've tried Vista...same ol' XP Pro only with weirder "Mac-wannabe" GUI features.
"Dear Bill,
It's the registry, stupid."


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## powermac (Jan 8, 2006)

It is just plain pathetic that m$ does that. Really, don't they have any shame? Does millions of dollars wipe out any emotions of shame and embarrassment? Guess I never know.


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## Lt Major Burns (Jan 8, 2006)

"XP with even more graphical bloat" is how one of my colleagues described it.

however, i think vista could be very good.  it's a step in the right direction, and the only problem left appears to be the registry.  if only they could find a way to remove that bit.  other than that, i'm kinda jealous of the effects they get, they're better than than macos!  the one where they stack all the windows in 3d?  that's very nice, as is the lovely blur+fade of glass.  that's also very nice.


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## iball (Jan 8, 2006)

Honestly, Vista will come out and some dev will look at some of the more "neat" features in it and do the same thing for Linux/Mac OS X, only it will crash less and probably be freely distributed.
Some of the more "neat" features had an odd Mac OS X-type of feel to them, and even Yahoo is getting into the game with their "Dashboard-for-Windows".
But it's Microsoft's insistence on keeping the registry around that will always hold it back.  If they were to jump away from that though, it would kill backwards compatability which is a big no-no to them.
I mean, c'mon, this is the same company that released a hotfix rollup for Server 2000 that BROKE Exchange 5.5 and then sat around for months before coming up with a hotfix to the hotfix rollup to fix it.  I could expect that from a regular application, but NOT for an enterprise-level application that still has at least a million users...well, at least a million in the U.S. Government sector alone.
My advice?  Don't buy before Vista SP1 comes out and even then wait a month to see what that will break or fix.


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## Lt Major Burns (Jan 8, 2006)

actually yeah.  this is 15 year old technology now.


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## nixgeek (Jan 8, 2006)

I shudder to think what the computer industry would be like if Apple didn't exist.  We'd all be running NCs on a Windows Terminal server running MS BOB or something like that. <barf>

Thank God that Apple is still around to show what innovation really is.


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## powermac (Jan 8, 2006)

I am not against eye candy features. If the technology is available why not !
At the same time, got to balance useful features with the eye candy effects, and not at the expense of system stability. 
For example, the 3-d view of running apps in vista. Looks cool. Still have to scroll through them all to get to the one you want. In my opinion, expose is still a better solution. All the windows are there, just move to the one you want. Less movement, and less taxing on the system. 
That start menu, when are they going to let that go?


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## iball (Jan 8, 2006)

Well, you can re-jigger Vista to look and operate EXACTLY like 2000 workstation.
Matter-of-fact, when XP Pro came out and we switched to it at work (mandated switch) we had to reconfigure the install builds so that it looked/operated just like 2000.  Our users were really confused with the cartoon-like XP interface and thought it looked like crap.
Like MAJ Burns already mentioned, it's just XP Pro with more grapical bloat features that most enterprises will ditch in favor of easier familiarity for their users.
Oh yes, "the network is the computer" ideas of NCs died a horrible death.  Sure, it's great for enterprises that have nice fat bandwidth and the money to keep it up and running, but it's crap for home users, small enterprises with littel to no in-house IT support, and those with limited bandwidth to support it.
Myself, I like what Bloomberg News here in Frankfurt has:  straight ASCII text interface window for most of their "IT work".


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## fryke (Jan 8, 2006)

(I just don't know anymore where to move all these Vista threads... They shouldn't really be in Apple (!) News & Rumours. But because we also talk about Mac stuff in these threads, they don't really belong to the Café either. Opinions? Those should basically be about Apple stuff, too IIRC... So let's keep this one here for now...)

I think that we should just let Vista do its thing and hope that Apple doesn't get into a "we have more 3D effects than you guys" type of war. We certainly know that Apple put a _lot_ of gum into Mac OS X from the very beginning. OS 9 felt snappier, and what's changing that is not that OS X is at the point where it feels as snappy as OS 9 did, but that OS 9 is not longer installable as the boot-OS on new machines, as well as that it gets more and more out of date.


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## iball (Jan 8, 2006)

I never really played around with OS9 on anything other than fixing a friend's broadband issues on her Mac.
But coming from Windows XP Pro I can tell you OS X 10.4.3 is a hell of lot "snappier" on a Mac mini with 1 GB RAM than XP Pro was on a 3Ghz machine with 1 GB RAM.
And I usually don't have eleventy-billion open programs running either.
Of course, you guys have been around on Mac OS systems far longer than I so I'll defer to your experience.


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## nixgeek (Jan 8, 2006)

I couldn't agree with you more on the NCs.  All those network appliances weren't very good ideas if you ask me, at least not for home users.

As for Vista, it's supposed to use the Classic mode (Win2000 look) for machines that can't handle the eye candy of Aero.  So yes, expect this to be the same as it's been on XP.  Actually, you can disable the eye candy in XP by disabling the "Themes" process in Services, which should hopefully save some memory.


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## Shookster (Jan 8, 2006)

The sad thing is that a lot of ignorant Windows users will think these features are actually revolutionary. Here's a frequent conversation I have with Windows users:

"OMG Macs suck!"
"Have you ever used a Mac?"
"No."
"Have you ever seen a Mac running?"
"No."

They'll probably think that Apple copied those features from MS.


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## iball (Jan 8, 2006)

Nah, Apple copied them from Xerox Parc first, then MS copied them from Apple.


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## Satcomer (Jan 8, 2006)

iball said:
			
		

> Nah, Apple copied them from Xerox Parc first, then MS copied them from Apple.



How soon is history re-written. Apple asked Xerox (who did not know what they had) to talk to the makers of the Xerox machine. Gates and company took an Apple prototype (they were a Mac Developer at the time) and used it to make Windows. That is the big difference.


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## MrNivit1 (Jan 8, 2006)

iball said:
			
		

> Nah, Apple copied them from Xerox Parc first, then MS copied them from Apple.



The original GUI idea yes, but not the more recent advances that this thread talks about (expose, searching, etc...).  That is just straight M$ copying from Apple (which they can barely do well anyways).


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## iball (Jan 8, 2006)

Satcomer said:
			
		

> How soon is history re-written. Apple asked Xerox (who did not know what they had) to talk to the makers of the Xerox machine. Gates and company took an Apple prototype (they were a Mac Developer at the time) and used it to make Windows. That is the big difference.


Which absolutely does nothing to disprove my statement?
Where did I "re-write" history?
Apple saw something that had a future at Xerox Parc and ran with it to creat their own "version" of it.
Microsoft saw something at Apple and ran away with a copy of it to make their own "version".


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## iball (Jan 8, 2006)

MrNivit1 said:
			
		

> The original GUI idea yes, but not the more recent advances that this thread talks about (expose, searching, etc...).  That is just straight M$ copying from Apple (which they can barely do well anyways).


Exactly my point.


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## Satcomer (Jan 8, 2006)

iball said:
			
		

> Where did I "re-write" history?



With statements like this:


			
				iball said:
			
		

> Apple saw something that had a future at Xerox Parc and ran with it to creat their own "version" of it.
> Microsoft saw something at Apple and ran away with a copy of it to make their own "version".



Apple had permission to copy Xerox but Microsoft went behind Apple's back and stole without Apple's knowledge. Your statement absolves Microsoft from the act of stealing.

Think about the logic. Apple spent only days at Xerox while Bill and company had months with the prototype Macintosh.

The makers of Pirates of Silicon Valley actually had that part right.


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## Lt Major Burns (Jan 8, 2006)

it was settled in the courts in the 80's.

apple said, "you nicked my GUI!"  
MS said, "maybe, but you nicked it it as well", 
to which apple said, "ah... well, i've heard you smell!"

and the judge told them to stop wasting his time.

at least, that's the Ladybird book version.


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## Mikuro (Jan 8, 2006)

Apple bought the rights to Xerox's stuff. I forget how much (I think it was mostly stock), but they bought it.

And Apple and MS settled out of court in '97-ish. MS bought a crapload of Apple stock and agreed to continue making Mac software for x years, and Apple agreed to stop suing them. I still hate Apple for making that deal...


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## fryke (Jan 8, 2006)

They wouldn't have won in court. They were turned down a couple of times before it. That deal is why you're still using newer Macintosh products.


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## Rhisiart (Jan 8, 2006)

fryke said:
			
		

> I just don't know anymore where to move all these Vista threads... They shouldn't really be in Apple (!) News & Rumours. But because we also talk about Mac stuff in these threads, they don't really belong to the Café either. Opinions? Those should basically be about Apple stuff, too IIRC... So let's keep this one here for now...



As long as Apple maintains a viable customer base and innovative ideas, who really cares what MS come up with? Their OS has always been like Swiss cheese, i.e. reasonably solid (in terms of market share) but full of holes (in terms of security). Vista will be not different.

Give me a Mac 'Stilton' any day, i.e. an acquired taste (well we are in the Café).


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## bkaron (Jan 15, 2006)

Check this Out!

http://maclive.net/sid/134


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## bkaron (Jan 15, 2006)

God! It's so true!

http://maclive.net/sid/135


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## bkaron (Jan 15, 2006)

Number 3!

http://www.maclive.net/sid/136


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## Jason (Jan 15, 2006)

erm i believe this has been posted already...


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## bkaron (Jan 16, 2006)

Has it?


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## fryke (Jan 16, 2006)

Yes. In the café somehwere, IIRC...


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## kainjow (Jan 16, 2006)

http://www.macosx.com/forums/showthread.php?t=266119&highlight=bill


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## powermac (Jan 17, 2006)

The whole idea of companies taking something from another is nothing new. Car companies do this all the time. Appliance companies as well. In the scientific community scientist take prior research and may even better modern medicine, etc. In many cases this practice has helped rather than hurt. 
It should not be expected that the computer industry is above this practice. In the case of m$, it just appears shabby. Especially with the recent exposure of the Macintosh people. Even hard core PC people visit Apple stores, play with the display models, etc. 
In my view, it is not that M$ took some ideas from Apple and made them more productive, they just took the ideas so they can justify selling Vista. That just appears to me as shabby.


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