Windows Vista Beta 2 (Build 5231) Review/Rant

[the0r3tic]

Windows Vista Beta 2, Tested on a 2.6gz p4 with 1gb of ram.

Installation

Now, this is a short little rant really, but it should get this message across: "Stay Away". I installed this sorry excuse of a operating system using a piece of Windows software called Daemon Tools (mounts disk images), and upgraded my XP installation. Thank god I backed up my
files, I usally don't (I move OS'es alot so I don't build up alot of data). The installation was very very time consuming. I can't quite remember now but I think it rebooted like 3 times and each of these times contained about 30 minutes of time consumption. So that's 1 hour and a half it took to install it.

Overview of Vista

Alot of the MS elite (some of you on these forums have noticed Im a little open minded about MS but Im not one of their elite) claim that variants of UNIX are bloated. My hardrive space was about 20gb out of 40gb before I upgraded to vista, now after, it's 13gb exactly (Screenshot 1 below). Wow, 7gb is quite a bit of space for a operating system that comes with a GUI, a web browser, some drivers and a Media Player. I know it comes with more stuff than that but it doesnt come with alot compared to a average installation of let's say SuSE Linux for example, which is about 2gb.

I don't know what the hell they've added to vista but it's literal bloat. About 35 processes idle, taking up about 450mb (Screenshot 2 below, shows me running paint, and IE 7) . I can't beleive it, and MS Paint of all things takes up 50mb of memory. 50mb! All of these processes ovbiously made Vista extremely unresponsive. Screenshot 3 below shows vista in one of it's routine 5 minute lock-ups, which involves explorer (the shell not the browser) crashing and alot of random garbage engulfing the screen.

Vista is also extremely user friendly (note the sarcasm), I know it's still beta but by the looks of it, the beta won't be much different from the final release. Screenshot 4 below shows some permission error while trying to delete a icon from the desktop. Wow, I bet all those average consumers are going to love that.

Devices

Well, my sound works. Couldnt test it using Windows Media Player or Winamp because they kept crashing (no suprise there). Couldnt get the Nvidia drivers working (Vista Beta ones from the site), because I was running beta 2. So I had to deal with a display of 1280x1024 @ 60hz (I couldnt even change it to my usual resolution of 1600x1200). I really can't comment on the rest of my hardware, because vista is resource hogging so much I can't run any software to try them out.

Internet Explorer

IE 7 is still beta at the moment, but they've improved it by quite a bit since IE 6. They've added tabs (finally), and redesigned the whole interface to fit in with Aero (the default Vista theme). It looks really nice to be honest, and it starts very fast compared to the rest of vista. I don't really have enough knowledge about it to comment any real negative points. It's probably got alot security holes, like it's predecessor and I still stick by firefox (See Screenshot 5 for a look).

Final notes

Like I said at the beginning, just stay away. If your running a machine that's average like mine, and your thinking of upgrading to vista, don't bother. I think high end machines would choke a little on this at the moment. It's terrible, I nearly threw my CRT out of the window whenever Vista locked up. There you go, your sneak preview to Microsoft's latest operating system equivalent of genocide.

the0r3tic

Screenshots

Edit: Removed, due to request by Yahoo.

[lakerdonald]

I too am open-minded about Microsoft, and I too have heard mixed reports about Vista, with some good aspects ( Aero, IE7 ) and some bad ( NVidia drivers, idle, obfuscated install process ). And you gotta love Yahoo image hosting -- your account has been lf'd.

[techieMoe]

Apparently your screenshots have been slashdotted... Or "linuxforumed". Haha. Also, I'm not sure as to the legality of posting screenshots from their beta product. I took screens for my rant of Vista Beta 1, but I haven't posted them yet because of that uncertainty.

[lakerdonald]

Also, I'm not sure as to the legality of posting screenshots from their beta product. I took screens for my rant of Vista Beta 1, but I haven't posted them yet because of that uncertainty.

The guys on longhornblogs have consistently shown screenies of their progress on Longhorn/Vista and its components.

[techieMoe]

Also, I'm not sure as to the legality of posting screenshots from their beta product. I took screens for my rant of Vista Beta 1, but I haven't posted them yet because of that uncertainty.

The guys on longhornblogs have consistently shown screenies of their progress on Longhorn/Vista and its components.

Bottom line for me: just because Microsoft hasn't sent a cease and desist doesn't mean they won't. It really doesn't matter to me though, since folks don't need screenshots to understand STAY AWAY.

[the0r3tic]

Dammit, I'll upload the screenshots somewhere else.

Edit: It seems the screenshots are back up again. Not for long though, haha.

[the0r3tic]

Apparently your screenshots have been slashdotted... Or "linuxforumed". Haha. Also, I'm not sure as to the legality of posting screenshots from their beta product. I took screens for my rant of Vista Beta 1, but I haven't posted them yet because of that uncertainty.

Hmm never thought about that, although I doubt they'll kick up a fuss.