Jeff Chan

Vista: Part 2

This is the second part of my Vista series. You can check out Part 1 and the screenshots.

The very first thing you’ll probably notice when you first boot up your Vista is the new start menu and start bar. The new start bar takes out the word “start”, so I’m not even sure if I should call it “Start” or not (:D). There’s not much change to the start bar, except for the new icons, which Brad says it looks ugly. As for the start menu, when you click that Windows icon at the botton, you’ll notice a little text box just above the icon. It’s the Windows search. Just like Spotlight on the Mac, this search let’s you do real time searches in which results will return in one or two seconds. Whether you are searching for a file or an application, it comes in very handy. When you click on “All Programs”, menus no longer extend out. Instead, it just make use of the existing column. As I hover over the different links on the right, you can see that the icon changes. Pretty cool. I must say I like the new search and the new way of browsing applications.

You can’t talk about Windows without even mentioning Paint. In this edition of Windows, Microsoft polished Paint a little bit by making the icons look better. I don’t see any other significant new feature or change. Microsoft is still keeping it simple.

Windows Explorer in Vista has a new take on file browsing on the PC. Unlike XP with the annoying and irrelevant sidebar, when you open up Windows Explorer, you get the file tree right away. They put the main functions you need on the top right below the breadcrumbs. You also should notice that there is no “my” anymore. Yes, you heard it right. No more “My Computer” and “My Documents”, it’s just “Computer” and “Documents”, thank god. I think the Windows Explorer in Vista gets to the point. New way of organizing your files, or in other words, a new file structure is very helpful. I am at the same time celebrating the extinction of the stupid my’s.

The image viewer from XP is now called Photo Gallery on Vista. Basic controls like slide show and rotation are still there. There are a few buttons at the top such as Burn to CD and Make a Movie. I’ve yet to try out the new Fix function which is suppose to fix and adjust your photo.

Finally, it’s the small tweaks that developers do that I love. This new tweak is an addition to the common used Alt-Tab. If you don’t know what this key combination does, it’s basically a shortcut to switching your windows. How many times have you tried to go to the desktop on XP by pressing Alt-Tab. I have, and it doesn’t work, sadly. Thanks to the developers who probably have the same problem, you can now switch to your desktop with the Alt-Tab shortcut.

The screenshot post of this part will follow. Check back!