Vista on the whole is a nice change from XP and seems to have a lot going for it, although it’s insane hard drive useage is quite worrying. In my opinion the changes made are too major to be considered as in any way small and the residue from XP is all to much for a new OS.
Glass
I’m sure glass is absolutely incredible, but I wouldn’t know- nor would anyone who’s machine is enterprise class. Without it the outer borders are consistantly horrid, as well as the different varying shades of blue they’ve used for the new almost-but-not-quite menus that litter the screen. It’s like they tried to emulate the Apple no menus window without the menu bar at the top.
Oh no are you attempting to execute a possibly untrustworthy executible which may or equally may not be mallicious!
The need for security is great in times like these. But asking the user repeatedly is confusing for newer users and pointless, those at danger will click yes, and there will eventually be a bypass mechanism- ruling the feature useless.
But first- count the dialouge boxes:
That’s not to say that they should all go, 4 is just clearly over-zealous. Asking the user for confirmation all the time will tire soon and alienate people new to computers, and irritate those that already have experience.
The big three. [CMD, Notepad, and Paint]
The command prompt is something that must look amazing on Aero Glass, it better- it’s horrendous without it.
Notepad, and indeed it’s slightly larger brother wordpad have received little love from Vista, also paint has nothing new to offer.
Conclusions:
Vista beta 2 has a lot of new innovations but does have some gross UI inconsistancies with parts that are entirely new and others which are directly from XP. Also it offers the sincerest form of flattery to Apple- It would be unwise to compare it to OSX as the latest version has yet to be released even any official news. There’s also far too much in the UI that is to be found by accident, such as the alt key showing the menus. Although on the other hand Office 2007 is very nice, with a user inteface that is more consistant with the Vista look and feel than most of Vista.
-Update:
Lifehacker has a nice set of screenshots which nicely summarizes the UI changes for those unable to install it.
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