FPSLabs : Newbie’s Guide to Vista: The Feel

Note: Author is a recent convert to Vista, who was very hesitant to switch from XP.

In the last article, we went over the basic “look” of Windows Vista, this time we will be going over the “feel”. Some of you might be thinking, “what the heck is the ‘feel’ supposed to be?” Well, the feel would be described as how you browse through windows, open programs, and the general feeling that the operating system gives you. With Vista, most of that feeling is seamless giving the utmost enjoyment over almost any other operating system I’ve used. Although Mac’s OS X has somewhat of a futuristic design and different features, Windows Vista took a lot from XP and basically enhanced it.

When you first open My Computer, you get the same feeling that you would with XP, but now you get more features. In the default titlebar, you get options to go to the Control Panel, Uninstalling/Removing/Changing Programs, and etc. You get a treebar on the left side, instead of those wimpy options you get in XP. Most people can’t get over the fact that it’s a new operating system, and that the smallest changes have made a big difference. With those changes, Vista brings features that are leaps and bounds beyond what XP had to offer. The address bar also changed, giving you the functionality to click all the way back to your root directory, without having to click your mouse’s back button, or clicking ‘previous directory’ a bunch of times. Don’t be fooled though, you can also change it back to the original style address bar consisting of the drive letter and sub-folders separated by a forward slash should you feel like you are missing XP.

Stability is the thing we seek most. Throughout our lives, we need a stable job to keep our bills paid, keep that roof over our head, and to be able to abuse your internet bandwidth as much as you choose. Well that is the biggest thing we look for in our Operating Systems as well, hoping that drivers being released for any of our hardware will be full-functioning and bug free. Well most people loathe Vista for all of its instability problems, and driver issues. We’ll take a look at this problem like this: What if the drivers from companies were “half-assed” and incomplete? Many had problems with the Creative drivers for their sound cards, and were pretty much stuck, until some good samaritan chose to modify the drivers for them to work properly. Vista cannot be used as a scapegoat forever, as just like XP, there will always be start-up problems. I will admit I’ve had my share of blue screens, errors, and whatever dysfunctions caused by a program or unstable driver. Has that stopped me from enjoying Vista’s UI, simplicity, tiny adjustments that please my whole user experience? Not one bit.

Being able to access your services through the task manager has been a big help for me. I have no idea if any of you are like me and choose to disable your Folding@Home while playing a game, or maybe you like to start/stop it during the course of your computer usage, but I do. Being able to close services and change related settings on the fly from a single, easy-access location without having to restart your computer has been an absolute blessing.

The sidebar has been a nuisance to me, but it can be a useful tool. I personally find no need for it, although some of the apps that come with it are informative, like being able to see your CPU/Memory usage without opening up the task manager. On that topic, opening up the task manager isn’t as easy as pressing CTRL+ALT+DELETE, it’s now in a menu after you press that combination of buttons. Overall the feel of Vista is confusing at first. It’s like a mix between Rocky Road and Vanilla ice cream. Creamy, original taste, or new, darker coloured flavor with nuts in it; takes awhile to get used to, but it is definitely worth it. Again, I will admit I have had my times where if I had a gun, I would shoot my Vista CD and burn my computer in the furnace. Aside from these infrequent frustrations, Vista not only looks better, but ultimately “feel’s” better than XP.

Next up: The Experience.

Previously: The Look

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