Living with Windows Vista

Day 1: User Interface

Wednesday, May 10, 2006 by Frogboy | Discussion: WinCustomize News

 

Windows Vista Beta 2 is coming pretty soon. Microsoft is tweaking UI, working on performance, improving compatibility. Each build gets better.  The question that many of us have, however, is whether there's enough time for Vista to get everything together in time for a November RTM (January for consumers).

Below are 4 screenshots to help show off the UI (so far).  The UI is probably the most noticeable improvement in Windows Vista.  Take a note of the clean and efficient load and save dialogs in there.

There's also two screenshots of the alpha version of "WindowBlinds Vista".   Windows Vista, as cool as it is, is probably going to be a real boon for skinners. There's a lot of new UI and a lot of opportunities to take it to the next level.

The overall user interface feels light and clean. It's a real improvement over Windows XP.  There are nearly a thousand new icons in Windows Vista.  Beta 2 won't have all the icons in yet, there's still a lot more coming in.  The Aero glass (the new glass look) is not final either but it's pretty close (contrary to rumors, it's not going to become some vector based thing).  The performance continues to improve.  However, it's very memory intensive.  We'll be asking Microsoft a lot of tough questions this week about the significant memory foot print and some remaining performance issues.
 

29 Reply 13 Referrals
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CerebroJD
Reply #21 Thursday, May 11, 2006 11:39 AM
Hehe, I see that last one was formerly a shot of dual screens... with the left one edited out for some reason...

Neil Banfield
Reply #22 Thursday, May 11, 2006 1:28 PM
No thats a single head setup.  The left 4 pixels should be the far right 4 pixels.  Print screen in Windows XP, Vista etc has a bug when it comes to doing fullscreen captures.

thomassen
Reply #23 Thursday, May 11, 2006 3:49 PM
Is WindowBlinds Vista capable of skinning the Aero mode in Vista? Or is that screenshot a VisualStyle?

Neil Banfield
Reply #24 Thursday, May 11, 2006 6:26 PM
The last 2 screenshots are of WindowBlinds running on Vista.  The skins in use are existing per pixel WB skins.

Mordalo
Reply #25 Thursday, May 11, 2006 8:48 PM
After playing with the first beta, I was unimpressed.
The second beta will have to be vastly improved before I'd consider upgrading.

As for the UI...it does nothing for me. Sorry.

misinformed
Reply #26 Friday, May 12, 2006 3:11 PM
Ive seen a lot of screenshots in vistas most recent build and im not terribly impressed with it. It doesnt look particularily revolutionary in terms of the user interface. And if i have to buy a dx 10 capable card just to get effects like a bit of frosted glass, im not going to do it. Wheres all the 3D manipulation of the UI, swirly bits and generally things worth paying for. If its not been shown off on in dx10 mode or whatever or something capable of 'simulating' dx10 features, which i think is an odd expression (ie screenshots of crysis were 'simulating' dx10 effects in screenshots using 'raw power' on a high end dx9 card) then ill be a tille less pessimistic.

Envisaged0ne
Reply #27 Friday, May 12, 2006 7:44 PM
There isn't any effect on Vista that you can't achieve with a DirectX 9 graphics card that's sold. Pretty much any ATI or NVIDIA card you get today will have directx 9 and pixelshader 2.0 and that's all you need. I bought one for a $100.00 and Vista works very fast and smoothly with it. Chances are, anybody that has bought a ati or nvidia graphics card lately will already be set to run Vista wtih all it's glass and 3d effects. You don't have to be impressed with the look or UI. That's your opinion. I'm just making sure people understand what they need if they want the glass effects, etc.

thomassen
Reply #28 Saturday, May 13, 2006 11:54 AM
I don't think anyone will buy Vista (or any OS) for the UI effects sake. It's what's under the hood.

Adamness
Reply #29 Saturday, May 13, 2006 1:08 PM
It's what's under the hood.


And what's under the hood, at least from what I've read, is pretty impressive. The per-application volume control is reason enough (for me) to buy it.

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