[Eug Wanker]

Meh. It looks like XP with transparency.

[tooki]

Wow, Vista looks amazing!!

tooki

[Obi Wan's Ghost]

Holy Buttman! Did you read the original features next to each image?

[RAILhead]

I'm almost embarrassed for them, you know?

Maury

[Severed Hand of Skywalker]

In real life does anyone stack folders on there desk like that?

Are all windows transparent or just the background ones?

[ghporter]

It looks better than XP-a lot better. Transparency is good. The window-control buttons in the upper right look better and less intrusive (XP looks like Fisher-Price had a hand in the display design!). It's overall more subtle, more mature looking...gosh! It's looks a little like a Mac screen! (Not much, mind you, but a little...)

[Severed Hand of Skywalker]

Originally Posted by ghporter

It looks better than XP-a lot better. Transparency is good. The window-control buttons in the upper right look better and less intrusive (XP looks like Fisher-Price had a hand in the display design!). It's overall more subtle, more mature looking...gosh! It's looks a little like a Mac screen! (Not much, mind you, but a little...)

I think XP with the silver theme looks much better.

[el chupacabra]

the start menu, the back and forward buttons, and the close window button all look very aquaish.

[sek929]

Couldn't someone have made a theme to mimic that almost identically?

[mitchell_pgh]

It's an improvement... but that's not saying much. I revert back to Classic mode on XP.

[greenamp]

Originally Posted by Severed Hand of Skywalker

In real life does anyone stack folders on there desk like that?

Are all windows transparent or just the background ones?

If the foreground window is transparent that would get very very annoying

[Agasthya]

Looks like IE got tabbed browsing too.

[Apple Pro Underwear]

makes me think of 2001 aqua but black

[mitchell_pgh]

Originally Posted by Apple Pro Underwear

makes me think of 2001 aqua but black

Reminds me of the Copland screen shots with the cool themes.

[jasonsRX7]

Originally Posted by greenamp

If the foreground window is transparent that would get very very annoying

It's not only transparent, it blurs everything behind it, so that's a little better.

[willed]

So is there ANYTHING in it that isn't in Tiger, which we have been using for months now? The transparency is ridiculous - they're just doing it for the sake of it. It should be to denote something, i.e. which window is in the background, but the foreground window is transparent too! I guess it's a concession to hardware makers who will sell newer systems with better graphics cards to deal with all this sh!t.

[MrForgetable]

i'm still going to try out the beta!

[spatterson]

Is there anything that Microsoft makes that’s innovating?

I mean this looks like some skin to Windoze XP… come one Windoze, make something that is innovative, and new… unique, and totally sets itself apart from the norm.

This is the same old crap, just given a band aid

[Kerrigan]

Looks alright, if you're a 15 year old 1337 h4x0rz. I doubt this is the final theme though. It looks too tacky.

[RonnieoftheRose]

Originally Posted by Kerrigan

Looks alright, if you're a 15 year old 1337 h4x0rz. I doubt this is the final theme though. It looks too tacky.

[- - e r i k - -]

Aaaaah, my eyes doesn't know where to focus on that window. The transparency. The clutter! My eyes! My poor eyes!

[hip(2)b⟡]

I swear to God, when I think of using Windows I get sick to my stomach.

Literally.

[Salty]

Wow those are some icons that look like they went through just about every focus group imaginable. That said, I hate the default folder in OS X... well hate's a bit strong... but I do tend to make custom folder icons for just about every folder I use regularly.

That said that is just awful.

[phillryu]

Viruses Infections, Spyware, Trojans, Adware. Welcome to Windows Vista.

[Judge_Fire]

The 'File Info' thing at the bottom of the window seems clean and informative, though. I prefer this immediacy to the hiddenness of 'get info'.

There's also a point in integrating basic audio/photo/video - browsing and cataloging into the file explorer app, XP was ok in that sense already.


These are about the only things I prefer in XP over Mac OS X, and they're about to get even better. Sigh, perhaps 10.5 will fix the Finder.....

J

[stevesnj]

V-very I-intently S-teal T-tigers A- aqua Interface


The search icon is the same as Spotlight (colors and icon reversed)

[alphasubzero949]

Oooh...a search field to find Applications in teh Start menu!!!!111oneeleven

[piot]

Paul Thurrott has posted an early review of the beta. Here.

He seems to be getting a tad realistc in his old age!

[Kerrigan]

It seems to me that the OS development at Microsoft and Apple has pretty much reached a plateau. OSes have nothing new or interesting to offer, all we should expect now are minor performance enhancements and security fixes.

Vista looks like it will be a decent product, but I think it will be a hard sell for Microsoft. Perhaps it will win back some disgruntled customers who switched to Linux or OSX, but I can't imagine why the average Windows user will go out and pay for Vista.

I'm not an IT expert, but I can tell that the real innovation in computing is occurring in the web applications area, and there is a real chance that Microsoft could lose that battle to Google. The OS is cold product.

[Cubeoid]

V ignings-should-be
I gniting
S sorry
T themed
A applications

[The Godfather]

Read my sig.

[hip(2)b⟡]

Godfather, that's screamin' cool!

[alligator]

I'm sitting at work today, thinking of how I could convince my company to let me use Mac at work (in our Windows world). The only thing I could think of is when we can run Windows applications at full speed (i.e. on Intel chips). The minute these come out, I'm going to have 100 reasons why I need to dump my PC and Vista and go to a Mac. My productivity will soar, the rest of the company will follow, and pretty soon, I'll have the whole word on Macs.

[Eug Wanker]

Originally Posted by Kerrigan

It seems to me that the OS development at Microsoft and Apple has pretty much reached a plateau. OSes have nothing new or interesting to offer, all we should expect now are minor performance enhancements and security fixes.

Vista looks like it will be a decent product, but I think it will be a hard sell for Microsoft. Perhaps it will win back some disgruntled customers who switched to Linux or OSX, but I can't imagine why the average Windows user will go out and pay for Vista.

I'm not an IT expert, but I can tell that the real innovation in computing is occurring in the web applications area, and there is a real chance that Microsoft could lose that battle to Google. The OS is cold product.

I'd be happy for now if the Tiger bugs were just worked out.

[CKr]

Windows XP looked really nice (with a professional touch) in late beta early RC stages and then went all playschool on us just before the final was announced. Windows Vista looks like crap but will probably migrate to something better looking, at least I hope. One thing Apple has been doing right is supporting older hardware while it seems like Win Vista is going to need a pretty hefty machine to get it running smoothly; all with basically the same features we already have in Tiger.

[Webscreamer]

You'd think they would add least show the innovative features in the system trying to get people excited.... but in the screenshots I find nothing new (transparency may be new to them...woopie).

The windows look cluttered and way too many buttons and features on them. They need to pick and choose the important features to show and which features are not necessary for every user, then put those in a nice menu somewhere.

I dunno... looks more elegant than the cartoonish XP, but they didn't need to rip off the glassy aqua look. There are plenty of other interface designs out there!

[ironknee]

A redesigned Start Menu in Windows Vista lets users start typing the name of the application they wish to open.

Credit: Microsoft

so, now we're back to text based commands like dos

they're going to run into the same transparency problem osx had in the early builds...unselected window goes transparent but with a few windows overlapping, it looked messy...and vista has transparency behind the TITLEs of the windows....oy

but i bet marketing said, i don't care if it makes design sense, make it go pop and wow...we'll deal with the issues in our next 200 updates

[Kerrigan]

ironknee I agree with everything you said except for the part about typing the name of the application. This idea of course was borrowed straight from Spotlight, where you can use shortkeys to type the first few letters of an app's name and have it launch. I think that it is more convenient that way, since we are all used to typing in names of websites in the browser's menubar, why not do it for applications as well?

[stevesnj]

Originally Posted by ironknee

A redesigned Start Menu in Windows Vista lets users start typing the name of the application they wish to open.

Credit: Microsoft

so, now we're back to text based commands like dos

Unless someone shows someone how to use this it will not be used...like spotlight onless you know what it can do most people don't use it at all.

[driven]

>A redesigned Start Menu in Windows Vista lets users start typing the name of the application they wish to open.


Didn't Windows used to call this "START | RUN" ???

As for Spotlight, everyone that I know with Tiger uses it. It's not hard ... it's easier than downloading the Google Desktop search.

[driven]

... also has anyone noted that the previously shown "sidebar" is now totally gone from Vista?

(I have no idea why)

[as2]

Originally Posted by piot

Paul Thurrott has posted an early review of the beta. Here.

He seems to be getting a tad realistc in his old age!

I like this line....

The search window, too, should look familiar, since it debuted earlier this year in Mac OS X Tiger.

[theolein]

Originally Posted by driven

... also has anyone noted that the previously shown "sidebar" is now totally gone from Vista?

(I have no idea why)

I've noted this before as well, and no one has said anything. The strange thing is that even places like Winsupersite etc have simply erased that side bar from their memories as if it never existed. I am surpised because Microsoft itself made a big deal about it a year ago in the first Alpha builds, saying it would be the place where "applets" could be placed with calendars, IM notifications etc.

I personally thought it was really ugly and wasted screen space, but it was at least a Microsoft "innovation", i.e. no one else would think of something as impractical as that.

I also think that Microsoft literally stopped all development on Longhorn when the first Apple OSX Tiger beta builds came out, because they must have known that their original design just didn't really offer all that much which was new. They really have copied a large number of OSX Tiger features, I think, which is the best form of flattery.

[ASIMO]

Bah. It is all good. I use both and I would prefer that both continually improve. For me, despite the fact that I have had to reinstall XP a handful of times already in the past few years (the last couple of times were probably due to a failing hard drive), XP has actually been a bit more stable on a day-to-day basis than OS X on my laptops. OS X on my PowerBook tends to have problems reawakening once a week or so, especially in closed-lid mode and attached to an external display. XP hardly has this problem. And SP2 was a decent update. But for anything other than work, OS X is still considerably more pleasurable to use on a daily basis.

[alphasubzero949]

You guys are missing the most important question...

...does it have Reversi???111

[im_noahselby]

Originally Posted by Salty

That said, I hate the default folder in OS X... well hate's a bit strong... but I do tend to make custom folder icons for just about every folder I use regularly.

That said that is just awful.

I don't think the look of the default folder has changed since the initial release. I'm actually surprised Apple would use something so ugly, but at least we have the freedom to change it.

Some of the custom jobs I've seen on the net fit the OS X theme beautifuly, far better than the default folder Apple uses. However, because this is such a minor thing, I doubt it's ever been much of a priority to change and who knows maybe we are the only two who thinks anything of it.

Noah

[im_noahselby]

On another note, it looks like Longhorn *cough* Vista, is shaping up nicely. Hopefully, it will be worth the long wait.

Noah

[version]

It looks and functions so much better than OS X, IMO. Also remember that the GUI isn't final, it's a tech demo and most of it wil be ripped out with something more usable put in its place.

I love it.

[- - e r i k - -]

/sarcasm

[funkboy]

At least this is one topic everyone can agree on (with the exception of version? or was that just extremely sarcastic?).