Here is the heart of the review of Vista by eWeeks Andrew Garcia
After three weeks of frequent usage, Windows Vista somehow seems like less than the sum of its parts. I know there are a lot of compelling features under the covers (Ive reviewed them ad nauseam), but their impact is hidden by a few glaring features that are constantly in your face, making you forget — or never notice — all the interesting stuff under the hood. Unfortunately, this is the level of experience that most people will have with Vista — intruded upon by the three features and characteristics that dominate the Vista experience.
One, everything has moved. Ill never understand why Microsoft feels the need to rearchitect the interface for every iteration of Windows. The company is looking for an intuitive interface, presumably to make it easier for new or novice users. But for most people, navigating an OS is a rote affair — find something, play with it awhile, try to remember where it is for next time. Yet every iteration, Microsoft moves stuff around to make it “easier” but destroys everyones rote memories. And Vista changes things a lot more than previous iterations, so I am constantly looking for that which I used to know where to find it.
Two, Aero Glass is an uninteresting resource pig, completely unworthy of all the resources it consumes. Forty percent of my system memory is consumed out of the box right now, and Aero Glass is the largest consumer. For what exactly? A 3-D ALT-TAB screen selection screen, translucent window edges and a handful of Sidebar widgets. This feature single-handedly hamstrings Vista installations with only 1GB of RAM, making slower computers swap memory with just one or two applications open.
Third is UAC, and it does not bother me at all[one of the few]. Ive been a big proponent of Least User Privilege computing in the enterprise for a long time, and I have tried with varying success to practice it at home as often as possible. Frankly, Least User Privilege is much, much easier to accomplish in Vista than in any other Windows operating system. I can live with it, and actually appreciate it.
Save for the printer drivers, everything works, and I can safely say that, so far, I am fine with Vista. I wouldnt say it impresses me, but it does (almost) everything I need it to.”
And here are the views of Eric Lundquist, editor of eWeek as expressed by Jason Brooks
Read all of Jasons review to get the full story, but here is a quick summary, “Microsofts Windows Vista Service Pack 1 has hit its RTM milestone, so if youve been waiting for SP1 to begin your organizations move to Vista, now is the time to start turning over your upgrade engines. On the other hand, if the conventional wisdom around the SP1 marker isnt enough to get your Vista testing efforts in gear, Microsofts planned June 30th halt to sales of shrinkwrapped or OEM copies of Windows XP means that if your company is going to get ahead of Vista, its now or never.”
So in effect Eric is saying that Jason is saying that because Microsoft is going to stop selling and supporting XP, corporate users are going to have to eat what Microsoft feeds regardless of the consequences:
1) Disruption and much greater help desk requirements because Service Pack 1 does not make any significant dent in hardware driver and program incompatibilities caused by remarkably “new” peripherals and older programs;
2)Disruption and much more time spent bringing Vista PC users up to speed in how this “People Ready” OS actually works(see Garcias number one point above);
3)Disruption in budgets because Vista costs more, will cost more in support, and will cost more in additional memory and CPU hardware to run it.
But hey, why shouldnt you want to contribute to the Bill Gates retirement fund – he promised Information at your Fingertips, and it appears Apple and Adobe and Open Source will be the first to deliver.