Last summer, I posted a couple of entries relating to the upcoming Windows Vista that were a brief daydream from a developer’s point of view and musings on the possible inclusion of a more-verstile command-line interface. Then I tore it all down by espousing Mac OX X. Finally, we’re getting more and more details about Vista everyday and I’m actually pleased with what I’m reading/hearing/seeing.
Extremetech has a good article here.
Right off the bat, I love the idea that more and more things are being moved into the user level of Vista‘s internals, instead of the kernel level such has been the case in Windows up to now. Drivers will operate at the user level – right on! If I never see another IRQ_NOT_LESS_OR_EQUAL BSOD error again, I’ll be truly impressed. I can live with a bare-bones VGA-type of mode if I’m trying out a new driver for my video card and it pukes; it’s much better than rendering the computer unbootable into anything other than Safe Mode. The fact that installing new drivers won’t necessetate a reboot anymore sweetens the deal. Then, of course, is the malware threat that is the bane of using Windows – hopefully it’ll be a real bitch for any ol’ app to gain access to the kernel. Stay in the user level where you belong, you hastily written piece o’ code!
Surely, everybody’s talking about the new Aero Glass interface in Vista. The screenshots from the beta versions of Vista make it appear to be super sexy for those lucky enough to have the beefy hardware for it in the first place. I can hear all of the Apple loyalists shouting “hey, we had a kick-ass GUI first in Mac OS X!”. Yes, Mac OS X has the best-looking uber functional interface right now without a doubt. Vista will 1-up it, then (hopefully) Mac OS X 1-ups Vista and so on. It’s a pissing contest for the fanboys but it sparks innovation, which is good for everyone. For me? If it’s functional and improves productivity, I’m cool with it – that’s it.
To earn a living, I develop for Windows on Windows. However, I can easily see myself using an Apple system for general use. I’d love to be able to have mutliple dedicated computers running various operating systems working together in perfect harmony – not virtual machines or dual booting – dedicated computers. Either way, I’ll probably continue to run Windows until as long as there is a marketplace for Windows software and the majority of the best games are for Windows. I’m just hoping that Vista is a the improvement over XP that it’s hyped to be.
3 Responses to "seeing good in vista"
But still a registry :P.
True.
But as more apps migrate to .NET and use metadata, the Registry will become reduntant for most situations.
I’ve got a copy of the Beta of Vista and use it to mess around with. It’s semi stable its only build 5112 and I know they are passed that. They also have some better looking screensavors on it :D.