A few Vista Beta 1 impressions

[blurredvision]

Well, I'm now posting from a clean install of WinVista Beta 1. Everything went smoothly. I installed from my WinXP installation, and was able to choose which hard drive to install to. I installed to my secondary hard drive which housed a trial version of WinXP64. It basically said it was going to move everything to a folder called Windows.old, and that installation wouldn't work anymore. Looks like it's done exactly that.

My first thoughts during installation is I liked the extreme simplicity of it, however I hated the lack of feedback of what exactly it was doing. Just a note that said it was installing, and nothing more but a moving bar. This may change later, though, I understand. My guesstimate put installation at around 30 minutes. I was able to get into WinVista with no problems, and the drivers for my 6800GT have installed fine. I'm running at my beloved 1680x1050 as I type. My ethernet driver installed fine also for my KV8-Max3.

Other than that for right now, not much else to report on. I haven't delved into anything yet, although I love the look. I had a window that refused to close by any conventional means, but a CTRL-ALT-DEL did the trick. I must say I like the new windows for the 3-finger salute, which gives you a few more options, one of which is to open the task manager.

I must say it is quite zippy, and I'm enjoyed tinkering around with it so far. It's looking good so far!

 

[yankeesfan]

Now I really wish it would work for me

 

[blurredvision]

Found this little gem. Looks to be a great addition for dual/triple monitor setups............

http://pics.bbzzdd.com/users/blurredvision/play.JPG

Was in the right-click menu of some video files. I don't currently have another monitor hooked up to test it out though .

EDIT: I'm stupid. Apparently this works in Windows 95.

 

[mrSHEiK124]

This metadata search and virtual folders and crap won't make it easier for anyone to find hidden pr0n will it ?

 

[mrSHEiK124]

Originally posted by: blurredvision
Found this little gem. Looks to be a great addition for dual/triple monitor setups............

http://pics.bbzzdd.com/users/blurredvision/play.JPG

Was in the right-click menu of some video files. I don't currently have another monitor hooked up to test it out though .

Buddy, that works in XP too, its driver specific AFAIK.

 

[blurredvision]

Originally posted by: sheik124

Originally posted by: blurredvision
Found this little gem. Looks to be a great addition for dual/triple monitor setups............

http://pics.bbzzdd.com/users/blurredvision/play.JPG

Was in the right-click menu of some video files. I don't currently have another monitor hooked up to test it out though .

Buddy, that works in XP too, its driver specific AFAIK.

Shows what I know. Sorry, hadn't seen it before.

 

[thehstrybean]

Originally posted by: sheik124
This metadata search and virtual folders and crap won't make it easier for anyone to find hidden pr0n will it ?

Now even your computer illiterate momma can find it...

 

[archcommus]

Originally posted by: SLCentral

Originally posted by: archcommus
I'm glad to see I'm not the only one here who still thinks the folder structure should stay organized. Again, even if for the sole reason of being able to get an overview of the entire contents of the drive.

But I do see the usefulness for these kinds of instananeous searches. But I have a question. With the exception of the speed and the ability to search WITHIN documents, what other advantages do these advanced searches offer over current searching in XP? I mean, with the soccer example, I could just as easily type "soccer" in XP's search, and get the same results as the oh so beautiful Spotlight in OS X.

And finally, as mitch mentioned, let's get how WinFS functions cleared up here. Does it or does it not rely on the folder structure for ANYTHING.

Well, first off, Spotlight in OS X (as well as the future Windows Vista search) is instantaneous. Meaning as you type, you're getting results. I search my 3/4 full 80GB HD in about 2 seconds flat. It also checks the metadata. For example, if you have a movie trailer that, in it's meta data, has some reference to Pixar. If you search Pixar, even if the movie title has nothing related to Pixar in it (such as, Toy Story), it will come up anyways, because Pixar was in the metadata. It's VERY powerful.

I didn't know current seach methods DIDN'T search metadata information, I figured it did. How can that info be edited?

 

[SLCentral]

Originally posted by: archcommus

Originally posted by: SLCentral

Originally posted by: archcommus
I'm glad to see I'm not the only one here who still thinks the folder structure should stay organized. Again, even if for the sole reason of being able to get an overview of the entire contents of the drive.

But I do see the usefulness for these kinds of instananeous searches. But I have a question. With the exception of the speed and the ability to search WITHIN documents, what other advantages do these advanced searches offer over current searching in XP? I mean, with the soccer example, I could just as easily type "soccer" in XP's search, and get the same results as the oh so beautiful Spotlight in OS X.

And finally, as mitch mentioned, let's get how WinFS functions cleared up here. Does it or does it not rely on the folder structure for ANYTHING.

Well, first off, Spotlight in OS X (as well as the future Windows Vista search) is instantaneous. Meaning as you type, you're getting results. I search my 3/4 full 80GB HD in about 2 seconds flat. It also checks the metadata. For example, if you have a movie trailer that, in it's meta data, has some reference to Pixar. If you search Pixar, even if the movie title has nothing related to Pixar in it (such as, Toy Story), it will come up anyways, because Pixar was in the metadata. It's VERY powerful.

I didn't know current seach methods DIDN'T search metadata information, I figured it did. How can that info be edited?

I'm almost sure it doesn't check metadata, and theres no way to change that. Thats one of the benefits of index searching. If I'm wrong, someone, please correct me.

 

[Rock Hydra]

I like the way it looks. I really enjoy the Aero theme.

 

[archcommus]

meneedtorrentbefcmu10cannotdo

 

[0roo0roo]

Originally posted by: thehstrybean
How much is an extra license for XP Pro? I read on the MS website that you just have to enter your product key and it will tell you if you're elegible, then you can buy them...I need to do this because I have XP Pro installed on 3 computers with 1 license...Anybody buy a license?

meh yea ms needs a family pack option like osx.. well if it has it i've never heard of it.

I didn't know current seach methods DIDN'T search metadata information, I figured it did. How can that info be edited?

what do you mean by current search? built in xp? pretty much no..and its so slow it would suck even if it did. if you mean copernic/google toolbar/yahoo and such then yea those do metadata...at various levels of competence...

 

[EyeMWing]

Originally posted by: 0roo0roo

Originally posted by: thehstrybean
How much is an extra license for XP Pro? I read on the MS website that you just have to enter your product key and it will tell you if you're elegible, then you can buy them...I need to do this because I have XP Pro installed on 3 computers with 1 license...Anybody buy a license?

meh yea ms needs a family pack option like osx.. well if it has it i've never heard of it.

I didn't know current seach methods DIDN'T search metadata information, I figured it did. How can that info be edited?

what do you mean by current search? built in xp? pretty much no..and its so slow it would suck even if it did. if you mean copernic/google toolbar/yahoo and such then yea those do metadata...at various levels of competence...

The 'family pack' option is known as VLK - the very same "Corporate" edition that gets used by massive corporations and pirates everywhere. Buy 5 licenses, 1 CD, teh winz.You get... Like $10 off each copy IIRC, and don't have to put up with activation.

 

[0roo0roo]

how much is this family pack? cuz the osx is 199. if u say its only 10 dollars off each copy thats like 500-1000(upgrade/full) dollars man...uncool...

 

[ActuaryTm]

Wouldn't it be great if there was an entire section of the forum devoted to Operating Systems?

Oh. Wait.

 

The install bluescreens for me every time on reboot. sucks.

 

[Insomniak]

Great, another cartoon-ball OS.

 

[blurredvision]

How do you set the windows to be transparent? It wasn't enabled by default I see, and I don't feel like searching around .

 

[Anubis]

Originally posted by: werk

Originally posted by: archcommus

Originally posted by: werk

Originally posted by: archcommus
Uhh.................NO. That's really the only word I can think of in reply to your post.

Quite frankly, digging through folders to find stuff is only a pain for those who have no friggin' idea how to organize crap. If you take some time to put things in their place, it's really quite simple. I can get to any requested document of mine within four folder clicks, and if I want to shorten that, a shortcut will do nicely. I use the search feature maybe once a month to find a rare program-related file or something.

I HATE the idea of not knowing what's on my computer, and that's exactly what search-oriented environments promote. "Just go ahead and toss your crap wherever you want, it doesn't matter, you can always find it with a search!" Then, months later, you see you're using over 100 GB of space and can't even begin to imagine what you're filling all that up with. Pretty hard to figure out when your C: drive is a huge catastrophe.

For those who can't organize, use your search and your Virtual Folders, that's fine with me. For those who can, like myself, there better be options in place to do things normally.

And a final question for those who love the search: If you rely on it so much to find your stuff, how do you efficiently back up ANYTHING? Just Ghost your whole drive and not worry about it?

Even for highly organized people, a good metadata search is invaluable. I think you're (partly) missing the point.

I won't be ignorant and deny that there are uses for it I have not utilized. But can you give me some examples?

Filtering music by genres or ratings in the shell instead of in a media player (for those freaks who insist on doing everything in explorer ).
Finding music with a particular guest artist.
Finding documents with particular authors.
Finding documents with certain keywords within them.
Finding photos taken on a particular date.
etc

Those are examples of what a normal home user would use it for. Now just think of the mess that shared directories at work can become. Adding indexed searching of network shares is huge.

EDIT:
The nitty-gritty of it all is that once you start organizing your media/files one way, you're stuck with it unless you want to do a lot of copy/pasting and renaming. Searching and filtering by metadata will save you a lot of future headaches. You can keep your folder hierarchy in a way that makes sense to you, but still be able to find those media/files that won't quite fit in one folder or another, or really belong in 2 (or 200).

i know what you are saying but for the average comp user Ituned and a Iphoto type piogram take care of pic sand music searching, 99% of the documents on most comps are authored by that comp user, so IDK how that gonna help people, keywords could be usefull, however im failing to see why currently

Like the other poster said I can fine anything on my HDD in 3 clicks of the mouse, i dont see how a search woudl help me at all

 

[loup garou]

Originally posted by: Anubis
i know what you are saying but for the average comp user Ituned and a Iphoto type piogram take care of pic sand music searching, 99% of the documents on most comps are authored by that comp user, so IDK how that gonna help people, keywords could be usefull, however im failing to see why currently

Like the other poster said I can fine anything on my HDD in 3 clicks of the mouse, i dont see how a search woudl help me at all

When was the last time you went to a library and used the card catalogue? Or went to amazon or a similar site and drilled down through the category listings to find a particular item? Face it, indexed searching, and in the future, fully relational database filesystems are the way things are going. It just makes sense.

I wouldn't expect anything else from you though, you don't seem to like anything "new."

 

[JetBlack69]

Originally posted by: archcommus
And finally, the author of that article says that this will have to do until MS finally drops drive-letter based organization. Can anyone clarify what this means? If he means we need a way of doing things where the physical location of a file doesn't matter, that worries me even more. All that's saying is "We need a system where people can put files wherever the hell they please and can still find them and not worry about organizing it."

I think what he means is that in windows you have:
c:\documents\music

but in linux, you would have something like
/documents/music

Then if you install another hard drive in windows, it would be d:, but in linux, you can mount it where ever you please and not mess up the drive letters since they don't exist in linux.

 

[NFS4]

Originally posted by: blurredvision
How do you set the windows to be transparent? It wasn't enabled by default I see, and I don't feel like searching around .

I tried TweakVista .60 and it still doesn't work on my Intel Integrated Graphics (Extreme Graphics II) in my laptop. I know that it isn't the fanciest graphics card in the world, but it should be able to support some stupid transparency effects.

 

[Acanthus]

Originally posted by: NFS4

Originally posted by: blurredvision
How do you set the windows to be transparent? It wasn't enabled by default I see, and I don't feel like searching around .

I tried TweakVista .60 and it still doesn't work on my Intel Integrated Graphics (Extreme Graphics II) in my laptop. I know that it isn't the fanciest graphics card in the world, but it should be able to support some stupid transparency effects.

I believes it WGF1.0 support that you need. Which isnt even finalized as far as i know.

I think its pretty much limited to DX9b and higher cards. (i know its a completely seperate standard, but that seems to be where the cards are falling in line).

 

[jjones]

Originally posted by: Czar
http://www.meversusthem.com/vista/index...image=d6b75cd3dbc82550a49b460114ada760
...omg.. people should be required to be blind to use that

Agreed. I'm still a file manager whore from the old 3.1 days. Give me classic theme without all the romper room graphics any day.

 

[Anubis]

Originally posted by: JetBlack69

Originally posted by: archcommus
And finally, the author of that article says that this will have to do until MS finally drops drive-letter based organization. Can anyone clarify what this means? If he means we need a way of doing things where the physical location of a file doesn't matter, that worries me even more. All that's saying is "We need a system where people can put files wherever the hell they please and can still find them and not worry about organizing it."

I think what he means is that in windows you have:
c:\documents\music

but in linux, you would have something like
/documents/music

Then if you install another hard drive in windows, it would be d:, but in linux, you can mount it where ever you please and not mess up the drive letters since they don't exist in linux.

hows that work if you have the same folder name on more then one HDD?