Anyone try Windows Vista Beta 2 yet?

[DaveH]

I got it via my MSDN subscription. Beta 2 is a lot more refined from the last CTP that was out in February. Right now I am dual booting it and XP with my new boxen. Tryin out Office 07 as well.

 

I know some of you are geeks. Own up!

[AR Husker Fan]

Okay, okay - I admit it. I have a test box with a middlin' proc, a gig of RAM, and a decent video card. I've been slapping each CTP on there as they come out. Like you, I've got Office 2007 beta 2 on there as well.

 

Impressions - hmmmmm... The interface is nice - assuming you have the horsepower to run it. The Areo interface is nice - on a par with Apple's, and now miles ahead of KDE or Gnome. I've been trying some of the security claims, and so far I have to say that it's held up. Removing so much of the "fluff" from the kernel has helped considerably, and the firewall is now both in-bound and out-bound - assuming you know how to fix it that way.

 

I like the new virtual folders, somewhat similar to Linux' "softlinks". The networking is still rough - I have a domain at home and while I can map drives via UNC or view shares with NET VIEW commands, etc., for some reason I can't graphically browse the network - hell, I can't even get the other computers to appear in the network browse list. But items in Active Directory from the DC can be located through the Active Directory. Odd.

 

Search is vastly improved. Compared to XP, it's lightening fast, and very good at locating relevant files. The ability to add comprehensive metadata really helps, especially for media content. You can, if you use a little effort on the front end, search of all pictures with a particular person in it, or that shows a particular location. Very handy.

 

One funny thing - I really thought the idea of icons that actually showed the contents of the folders was just eye candy. But I find it actually to be one of the things that makes computing easier for some odd reason.

 

While Microsoft has tried to address the issue of limited user rights in a manner similar to Linux, on this point it still isn't working the way I think it should. Right now, there are too many pop-ups asking for explicit permission to access a DLL or to run an application. Under Linux, I can assign rights at such a granular level that a "power user" isn't bugged by such schlock while a standard user is locked out of doing any real damage. Microsoft needs to work on this.

 

Office 2007 - the first thing that hits you is the interface. Gone are the menu bars and icon bars, replaced with "ribbons", which are dynamic; i.e, they change to display relevant commands/icons based on need. I generally dislike such things - the so-called "personalized" menus under Windows XP and Office 2003 simply cause power users to have to click too much. But Microsoft has mostly gotten this right - if they would allow more customization of some of the ribbons. Still, once you get used to it, it actually is a productivity enhancer.

 

I haven't had time to play with the collabaration features - I need to set up a SharePoint server, for one thing, and haven't had the time.

 

Being beta, both software packages have a lot of debug code and they run like molasses. But that's par for the course at this point with Microsoft betas - they'll optimize it soon enough.

 

This release of Windows may actually turn out to be pretty good - assuming users have sufficiently powerful hardware. The security enhancements alone will help a ton. And that's where most of my testing has gone to - and for once Microsoft seems to have gotten serious on that point.

 

A lot of people, though, are going to have trouble. Software that uses 16-bit installers simply won't install. Security software, such as firewalls and anti-virus, will have to be recompiled to run under Windows due to the movement of so many "hooks" out of the kernel. Drivers won't be much of a problem for new hardware, but I'll bet most scanners, for example, aren't going to work and the manufactures won't update the drivers. HP pulled that one when Windows 2000 and XP were released.

 

Anyway, that's my general impressions. So, Dave - how about you?

[DaveH]

So far, I would agree with most of your assesment.

 

I haven't tried the collaboration tools as of yet as well. I am waiting to get a machine at work I can load it on to try it out in a Windows 2003 AD envrionment.

 

I know Microsoft has tried to remove a lot of the flakyness from the explorer shell that I know everyone has had to experience at one time or another. Be it taking for ever to authenticate with a machine on the network in a non AD environment or being god awful over a WAN connection. In my experience, they have gone a long ways with that. It would takes a good 15 seconds for my XP box to authenticate to my 2003 server. Now, Vista will authenticate in a few seconds. I still have to test it in a WAN environment.

 

The shell seems more responsive in general, even with the AERO glass turned on. I don't find myself staring at that stupid flashlight for seemingly no reason.

 

I have never really browsed the network graphically. I always know where I want to go anyway. As far as being able to browse the network, can you tell who is the master browser?

 

The biggest thing in my mind right now, as you mentioned, is the security and the dialogs asking for permission. It's a step in the right direction. Also, if you noticed in Beta 2, you can no longer ignore the dialog. You can't continue unless you click on something. From what I have read, they changed that because Microsoft's security team was able to come up with a cursor spoof attack to trick the user into clicking the "continue" button. So now it functions more like the Control-Alt-Delete log in procedure, apparently utilizing a trusted path to the OS so you can be sure you are talking to the OS and nothing else.

 

As far as the amount of dialogs, they come up now when I expect them to. Installing software, changing system settings, etc etc. It is definitely better in Beta 2 than it was in the February CTP. It was coming up for relativley minor things.

 

I'm afraid that if it comes up too much, Joe user is just going to click Continue and not read the dialog. Thus defeating the whole thing. If they were a standard user, though, I believe they would have to enter the admin password kind of like in *nix. I haven't tried this though.

 

As far as Office is concerned, you are right in that it's going to take some getting used to, but I think it will be OK in the long run. I always kind of despised having to go through menu after menu looking for what I want. Toolbars addressed it in a kinda sorta way.

 

One thing you should check out, AR, if you haven't already is the Windows Powershell. It's actually a good shell! One big difference between it and shells like bash are it isn't text based. It's object based. Instead of commands returning streams of text, they return objects that you can then manipulate.

 

Powershell is in RC1 right now: Here's a link

[Blackshirt]

 

..and yet another

[AR Husker Fan]

Is the PowerShell the Monad tool? I've played with that a little, and it is damn powerful. From what I've heard - I haven't installed the beta yet - is that Exchange has it. You can now script any admin function without screwing with the GUI.

 

Anyway, I'll take a look.

 

The master browser - hmmmm...I'm not getting any log errors that Vista is trying to "steal" the master browser role from my Windows 2000 Server box, but I'll investigate further. I'm assuming that Vista has the same Registry hack for disabling a machine from announcing itself to the browse list, or forcing an election.

 

And you're right about the user just clicking through. That bugs me. I don't know whether a standard user would have to have an administrator password - once I joined to the domain I used one of my admin accounts to play. That's something I definitely need to check out.

[AR Husker Fan]

 

..and yet another

Ah, come on, Blackshirt. I know you want to jump in here and discuss the kernel changes, the scripting capabilities, the Microsoft implementation of the new Office format that is set to challenge Adobe.

[DaveH]

  Ah, come on, Blackshirt.  I know you want to jump in here and discuss the kernel changes, the scripting capabilities, the Microsoft implementation of the new Office format that is set to challenge Adobe.

Adobe is none to happy about Microsoft's implementation of PDF in Office 2k7.

 

Yes, Powershell=Monad. Powershell is kind of a gimmicky name if you ask me. They should have just named it Microsoft Shell.

 

Anyway, yea it's really powerful. Very vast as well. I've only got into the tip of the iceberg.

 

The standard user wouldnt' have an admin password. I would think they would have to supply THE admin password or the credentials of an admin account. I'll mess with it and post the results.

 

Blackshirt isn't 1337 enough. He can't hang with teh 1337 hax0rz! Tell em, slacker.

[slacker]

 

..and yet another

LOL! Agree...

[DaveH]

Hmm. Interesting. I created a new account and started a command shell as the new user.

 

For somethings, like opening compmgmt.msc, I don't get prompted and can't do much of anything. As expected.

 

But if I try to remove a piece of software as a standard user, I get prompted for credentials. If I try to open the System control panel applet, I get prompted for credentials. Oddly, it asks me for the only other account I have that is part of the administrators group. The administrator account itself is disabled.

 

I wonder why some things prompt and others don't.

[AR Husker Fan]

***SNIP***

 

I wonder why some things prompt and others don't.

Good question - seems to be no rhyme nor reason...

[BIGREDIOWAN]

This whole conversation looks like circles, squares, triangles, and I can almost here the clicks as well!!!

[rawhide]

regardless

 

 

 

 

dont mess with my soups

[tattooedhusker]

i got microsoft office 2007 beta 2 (i think, i'm not sure on the "2" but i know it's microsoft office 2007 beta) somehow i got it for free.