(this article is reprinted on my business site as well.) 

All the world is talking about Microsoft Vista this and Vista that.  Personally I am sick of it but unfortunately it does affect us all in many ways.  My job requires me to be familiar with current technology, and the last thing i want in my life is to site down at a customers PC and not be sure what i am doing.

I try not to jump on any bandwagons and talk about things that are nothing more then rehashes of info you can read on any site.  So what do I bring to this dead horse to hit it with?

I shall install Vista ULTIMATE EDITION (excessive fanfare and jubilant cheers) 

(...well, I will install it on a virtual machine on my Mac.   After all when I am done goofing around I will need to get back to work and thats difficult enough on XP, let alone Vista.)

 I fired up my beta version of Parallels for this foray.   I no longer use PCs in my home so this was the best way to EXPERIENCE VISTA (more fanfare and jubilation)

Behold the power of Parallels desktop.  With this fancy software I can run my old XP harddrive that I yanked out of my old workstation.  This way I can use Xp as a program on my Mac OSX desktop.  By doing this I can run programs that are only built for Windows, get to my old files I still have not sorted yet, or in this case, check out Microsofts new offering to the masses without fear of fucking anything  up or losing data.

I have heard plenty of horror stories about people having issues with the Vista install.   I have read about it having crap driver support, poor install routines and various other negative problems.  -matt

Of course....my install went fine.

After about 15(?) minutes of watching it install in the background while I started this article I saw it reboot about 3 times, then ask me about 6 times if I wanted to install a unsigned driver, (of course I do, it's for Parallels), then it rebooted yet again and now I see the new and fancy and almighty Vista Desktop.

I gotta say...where's the beef?

I have used a Vista style desktop them for my old XP workstation for well over a year so the layout and colors don't surprise me much.  It looks nice, and takes a lot of it's style from current trends.  Some would say it copies OSX, and I do see similarties there, but most every designer can tell you a popular theory is if it works, copy it.

The usual location of many of Windows settings such as right clicking on the desktop is different.  Apparently to make things easier for the user.  I still can't seem to figure out how moving settings or dumbing down context makes it easier on the user, but I am not paid by Microsoft to think.

Personally I hypothesis that Microsft built their OS and added this and that widget to it over the years but never really changed  how it runs or operates or if it's usable.  Because of this we are all still thinking inside these "Windows" and not outside of the proverbial "box".

Unless of course you are a OSX user.

In the next installment I will get into how well Vista runs and what quirks madden me, or what things I enjoy.   I will also get into Parallels for people who are interested.

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