Windows Vista

Well SP1 is just around the corner (out to manufacturing and will be updated mid March for everyone else).

SP1 White papers

I have been using Vista for almost a year now (thanks to a buddy of mine for the hook up). Obviously my main motivation was for DX10 (I am a cutting edge hard core gamer). The DX10 opinions aside though (some say its no real difference but whatever), in all I actually really like Vista. True, there is a performance hit, and I have to confirm and reconfirm every other thing I want to do (run program, delete crap, etc) but by large, I love it.

Obviously a major change is the interface (which I really like). I don't see why people give a big deal over how interface is useless and uses up too much power. Aero is pretty, so is Flip 3d, and Dreamscene (for us Ultimate version people ;) ). But if you'll be staring at crap all the time, it might as well be something pretty right?

I love the desktop search and it's instant search abilities (the moment you start keying in characters, it's already pulling stuff up). For me, file browsing is way better in Vista then it is in XP. My main gripe about this has always been the vaulted file transfers (I can feel myself age when moving crap around). This however is supposedly one of the major things addressed in SP1. So fingers crossed. My friends who have beta'd SP1 have nothing but good things to say about it.

Another thing that I do hate about Vista is networking. I couldn't set up a static ip to save my life. My buddy at Oregon State University says that Vista PCs wrek havoc on their DHCP servers. I just wanted some freaking static IP for simplicity. I have since resigned to the fact and enabled uPNP on my router (which I really would rather not have done). If anyone out there in cyberspace knows how the fuck to do this lemme know (coz I've tried and tried but I'm a dumb ass and may have missed something anyways). I think its the IPv6 messing things up. BAH.

SP1 should bring out plenty of changes that we've been waiting for. I guess for some is the 'increased stability'. I personally have never had a stability issue that I've attributed directly to Vista (haha hardware causes are common for me though - always tinkering and pushing). It does irritate me somewhat that just because shit doesn't work on Vista, its Microsoft's fault. Come on people. Attribute equal or more blame on the developer of that program for not making something halfway decent or not releasing updates for it.

Another thing that I welcome is the reintroduction of Disk Defragmenter's ability to defrag individual drives. I thought it was crazy silly that I had to defrag my close to 1TB of space just to clear up my windows partition. I later on found a way to defrag that partition through administrator console. (defrag c: -w -f FOR THE WIN!).

But I guess we'll see in a few weeks. :)

And obviously my view is that through the eyes of a user and a power user at that. I could care less what kinda coding went to it (does not pertain to me really haha). All I care is that shit is going to work better.