I've been using Vista for more than a month now and I've been extremely satisfied with this operating system, finding nifty little stuff about it even after a month of use, its amazing how some of the new features make your life all that easier.
1. Windows Sidebar: This is a great addition to the system, I use OSX on a daily basis so I'm familiar with Dashboard but I don't really use it, Sidebar has changed my take on widgets, I actually use them a lot now, the fact that you can drag them out and in at will, make them stay on top, change opacity, etc, gives them amazing versatility. I love having a currency converter and calculator to be used in an instant. When I want to make a quick calculation or a series of quick calculations, I just drag out calculator, set it to be always on top, do my calculations and send it back to the sidebar, I've never been able to access and use a calculator (or other nifty "gadgets") as fast as with Windows Sidebar, not even with Apple's Dashboard. Awesome feature, I honestly believe Microsoft schooled Apple in the Widget implementation.
2. Indexed Search: Another great addition to the system, it always finds what I want in a heartbeat, I've always thought Spotlight was such an incredible feature, I'm so glad indexed searching is finally on Windows and that it works so well. Search bars can be found all over the system so its great, I know I'll love indexed searching even more when my start menu becomes riddled with programs.
3. Snipping Tool: A small application but will prove to be extremely functional, snipping tool doesn't really allow you to do anything you couldn't do in say, Windows XP, but Snipping Tool allows you to do it in less steps. For example, you want to copy a portion of your desktop to show your friend something. In XP you'd have to Print Screen, copy into Paint, crop the section of your screen you want to show, save, send. Snipping Tool lets you directly select any part of your screen to save as a picture where you can doodle, highlight, erase, save, copy and directly send through email. A small feature but important nevertheless, if I had decided to add pics of every "thing" in this thread, Snipping Tool would have made my life 10x easier.
4. Flip3D: Well this is not exactly a "cool" feature for me personally but something I wanted to talk about anyways. There are 2 features that I love about OSX and help me a LOT when using OSX, Spotlight and Expose. Microsoft their hand at both and while they succeeded with indexed searching their take on window management is not nearly as pleasing. First of all, there are not easy shortcuts for Flip3D, in OSX, you get the option of 4 screen hotpoints (which I LOVE) and a single key shortcut. Flip3D has one button in the taskbar and the win+tab shortcut. Then once you do activate Flip3D you run into some issues, for example, it looks very nice but there is tons of wasted space and hidden content from windows. It's not entirely bad and sometimes it HAS helped me but even after a month of REALLY trying to use it, I'm still very dissapointed by it. Microsoft has a LOT to learn from Apple in this particular feature.
5. Aero: Aero is the new theme for Windows which is now rendered by the Desktop Window Manager which uses the GPU to draw Windows which makes the Windows enviroment more enjoyable and faster as well, windows fade in and out, minimize, maximize, with nice, relaxing animations, smooth, big, detailed icons, pleasing colors, added depth and emotional connection thanks to glass and high customization, you can turn off any aspect of Aero, change the colors so you can have your enviroment any way you want. Live Thumbnails are really cool and useful, Segoe UI works great as a system font and a few aesthetics touches here and there (like removing "My" from all folder names or changing "Documents and Settings" to a more pleasing "User" folder or smooth or a relaxing progress bar that make waiting a little better
). Its easier to navigate through stuff and find the option you want to change, all this sense of control cemented by the Search option.
6. Games Explorer: When I used XP I liked to keep my games' shortcuts in a folder in the top right corner of the screen, out of the way of everything. Vista adds something like this, except it puts it on your start shortcuts and makes it all more enjoyable and functional by adding boxart for games, ratings, experience index ratings and additional commands for games (for example, Far Cry, you can choose to Play the game or configure Far Cry with a nice dropdown menu), it also adds Support and Forum links for games and gives you access to commonly used tools related to games (for example the add/remove programs menu, firewall, hardware, video, etc) finally it also includes nifty parental controls that work in tandem with ESRB ratings. I love this feature since its pretty much what I used in XP, just made prettier, integrated and more powerful.
7. Integrated and Improved Security: Vista is a much more secure system, whenever I install XP, I always have to install a load of software before I deem it "safe", Vista adds TONS of features to make it a more secury system, for example Windows Defender is now integrated into the system. User Account Control gives you an extra layer of protection similar to what OSX and Linux have had, small features here and there like IE running in a low-privilege mode called "Protected Mode", etc all make Vista very secure, I've checked my Defender and Avast logs, they have yet to stop anything so I might as well turn them off. An important step for Microsoft, with little effort you can keep your Vista machine very safe.
8. SuperFetch and Performance: Office 2007 takes 20 seconds to open on XP, it takes 3 seconds to do so on Vista, in fact all my frequently used applications open in a snap compared to XP, I'm liking this increment in performance so much, its hard to believe, Vista handles RAM much better. Additionally, on fast systems (like my Mac Pro) Vista feels so much faster than XP its ridiculous, so for all gamers out there, don't think Vista is bloated or anything, it'll feel like a faster system from the moment you first boot it compared to XP. On slow systems with less than 1GB and crappy videocard, Vista might feel a little slower but you'll still be able to take advantage of features like SuperFetch. There are also very nice tools for monitoring performance and reliability, including a monitor that gives your computer a reliability rating depending on crashes, blue screens, hardware failures, etc, etc.
9. Network: Network is much improved over XP, you can use many network "locations" similar in style to OSX, it finds computers in a snap, it just feels very OSX-like (in a good way) in terms of ease of use and control, sharing folders are easier to set up. Another very cool thing I noticed is, if there are two Vista computers in a network and one open Media Player, you can automatically start sharing media in a snap, I'm sure this kind of tight net integration can and will be extended to more uses. Support for newer protocols and a few optimizations here and there polish the whole network component for Vista, very nice.
10. Installation: I loved the installation process in Vista, its wicked fast (much faster than XP), very, very easy to go through, repair options are GUI based, no more dealing with horrible command line interfaces and low res blue screens and whats best, most of your stuff will work right from the get go, Vista has drivers for TONS of stuff, it just deals with hardware a lot better than XP. Installing, troubleshooting and repairing XP is a chore and can be difficult, tiresome and lengthy, Vista on the other hand, install in a snap, has great troubleshooting and repair options and uses much more cohesive boot tools, props to MS on this one.
I think Vista is a nice big step forward and these 10 cool little things are just some of the standouts but there is a lot more to Vista, I LOVE how good it looks and how easier it is to do stuff, what I loved as well is all the technical improvements, including performance improvements, I thought Vista was going to be a bloated system but turns out, it outperforms XP (at least in general usage) and has made my computing experience a lot more enjoyable, it has tons of potential, I can't wait to find the next "little cool thing" in this OS, its just chock full of surprises
I'll be using Vista permanently now, the only use I have for XP right now is games, they work faster on XP but I'm sure made-for-vista DX10 games will pull ahead in performance over time, for the moment, some games take a performace hit, some don't work but on the flipside, some games do work perfectly without any performance hit so its not all that bad.
1. Windows Sidebar: This is a great addition to the system, I use OSX on a daily basis so I'm familiar with Dashboard but I don't really use it, Sidebar has changed my take on widgets, I actually use them a lot now, the fact that you can drag them out and in at will, make them stay on top, change opacity, etc, gives them amazing versatility. I love having a currency converter and calculator to be used in an instant. When I want to make a quick calculation or a series of quick calculations, I just drag out calculator, set it to be always on top, do my calculations and send it back to the sidebar, I've never been able to access and use a calculator (or other nifty "gadgets") as fast as with Windows Sidebar, not even with Apple's Dashboard. Awesome feature, I honestly believe Microsoft schooled Apple in the Widget implementation.
2. Indexed Search: Another great addition to the system, it always finds what I want in a heartbeat, I've always thought Spotlight was such an incredible feature, I'm so glad indexed searching is finally on Windows and that it works so well. Search bars can be found all over the system so its great, I know I'll love indexed searching even more when my start menu becomes riddled with programs.
3. Snipping Tool: A small application but will prove to be extremely functional, snipping tool doesn't really allow you to do anything you couldn't do in say, Windows XP, but Snipping Tool allows you to do it in less steps. For example, you want to copy a portion of your desktop to show your friend something. In XP you'd have to Print Screen, copy into Paint, crop the section of your screen you want to show, save, send. Snipping Tool lets you directly select any part of your screen to save as a picture where you can doodle, highlight, erase, save, copy and directly send through email. A small feature but important nevertheless, if I had decided to add pics of every "thing" in this thread, Snipping Tool would have made my life 10x easier.
4. Flip3D: Well this is not exactly a "cool" feature for me personally but something I wanted to talk about anyways. There are 2 features that I love about OSX and help me a LOT when using OSX, Spotlight and Expose. Microsoft their hand at both and while they succeeded with indexed searching their take on window management is not nearly as pleasing. First of all, there are not easy shortcuts for Flip3D, in OSX, you get the option of 4 screen hotpoints (which I LOVE) and a single key shortcut. Flip3D has one button in the taskbar and the win+tab shortcut. Then once you do activate Flip3D you run into some issues, for example, it looks very nice but there is tons of wasted space and hidden content from windows. It's not entirely bad and sometimes it HAS helped me but even after a month of REALLY trying to use it, I'm still very dissapointed by it. Microsoft has a LOT to learn from Apple in this particular feature.
5. Aero: Aero is the new theme for Windows which is now rendered by the Desktop Window Manager which uses the GPU to draw Windows which makes the Windows enviroment more enjoyable and faster as well, windows fade in and out, minimize, maximize, with nice, relaxing animations, smooth, big, detailed icons, pleasing colors, added depth and emotional connection thanks to glass and high customization, you can turn off any aspect of Aero, change the colors so you can have your enviroment any way you want. Live Thumbnails are really cool and useful, Segoe UI works great as a system font and a few aesthetics touches here and there (like removing "My" from all folder names or changing "Documents and Settings" to a more pleasing "User" folder or smooth or a relaxing progress bar that make waiting a little better
). Its easier to navigate through stuff and find the option you want to change, all this sense of control cemented by the Search option.6. Games Explorer: When I used XP I liked to keep my games' shortcuts in a folder in the top right corner of the screen, out of the way of everything. Vista adds something like this, except it puts it on your start shortcuts and makes it all more enjoyable and functional by adding boxart for games, ratings, experience index ratings and additional commands for games (for example, Far Cry, you can choose to Play the game or configure Far Cry with a nice dropdown menu), it also adds Support and Forum links for games and gives you access to commonly used tools related to games (for example the add/remove programs menu, firewall, hardware, video, etc) finally it also includes nifty parental controls that work in tandem with ESRB ratings. I love this feature since its pretty much what I used in XP, just made prettier, integrated and more powerful.
7. Integrated and Improved Security: Vista is a much more secure system, whenever I install XP, I always have to install a load of software before I deem it "safe", Vista adds TONS of features to make it a more secury system, for example Windows Defender is now integrated into the system. User Account Control gives you an extra layer of protection similar to what OSX and Linux have had, small features here and there like IE running in a low-privilege mode called "Protected Mode", etc all make Vista very secure, I've checked my Defender and Avast logs, they have yet to stop anything so I might as well turn them off. An important step for Microsoft, with little effort you can keep your Vista machine very safe.
8. SuperFetch and Performance: Office 2007 takes 20 seconds to open on XP, it takes 3 seconds to do so on Vista, in fact all my frequently used applications open in a snap compared to XP, I'm liking this increment in performance so much, its hard to believe, Vista handles RAM much better. Additionally, on fast systems (like my Mac Pro) Vista feels so much faster than XP its ridiculous, so for all gamers out there, don't think Vista is bloated or anything, it'll feel like a faster system from the moment you first boot it compared to XP. On slow systems with less than 1GB and crappy videocard, Vista might feel a little slower but you'll still be able to take advantage of features like SuperFetch. There are also very nice tools for monitoring performance and reliability, including a monitor that gives your computer a reliability rating depending on crashes, blue screens, hardware failures, etc, etc.
9. Network: Network is much improved over XP, you can use many network "locations" similar in style to OSX, it finds computers in a snap, it just feels very OSX-like (in a good way) in terms of ease of use and control, sharing folders are easier to set up. Another very cool thing I noticed is, if there are two Vista computers in a network and one open Media Player, you can automatically start sharing media in a snap, I'm sure this kind of tight net integration can and will be extended to more uses. Support for newer protocols and a few optimizations here and there polish the whole network component for Vista, very nice.
10. Installation: I loved the installation process in Vista, its wicked fast (much faster than XP), very, very easy to go through, repair options are GUI based, no more dealing with horrible command line interfaces and low res blue screens and whats best, most of your stuff will work right from the get go, Vista has drivers for TONS of stuff, it just deals with hardware a lot better than XP. Installing, troubleshooting and repairing XP is a chore and can be difficult, tiresome and lengthy, Vista on the other hand, install in a snap, has great troubleshooting and repair options and uses much more cohesive boot tools, props to MS on this one.
I think Vista is a nice big step forward and these 10 cool little things are just some of the standouts but there is a lot more to Vista, I LOVE how good it looks and how easier it is to do stuff, what I loved as well is all the technical improvements, including performance improvements, I thought Vista was going to be a bloated system but turns out, it outperforms XP (at least in general usage) and has made my computing experience a lot more enjoyable, it has tons of potential, I can't wait to find the next "little cool thing" in this OS, its just chock full of surprises
I'll be using Vista permanently now, the only use I have for XP right now is games, they work faster on XP but I'm sure made-for-vista DX10 games will pull ahead in performance over time, for the moment, some games take a performace hit, some don't work but on the flipside, some games do work perfectly without any performance hit so its not all that bad.
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