Windows Vista RC1 review

Microsoft is planning to release Windows Vista RC1 to more than 5 million people to get a good testing feedback for its next generation operating system. That's old news that's been published in all technology news magazines, websites, blogs and what not. What's really not known is how good (or bad) is it and is there any improvement in it since Beta2. As I am sure most will remember Beta 2 was slaughtered by most of the beta testers including yours truly and predictions were made that it was the beginning of the end of Microsoft's dominance.

In my previous experience with Windows Vista, it took me a long time to get the operating system installed and working. This time around the total time to setup the operating system was less than the time it takes to finish a leisurely cup of tea. In fact I completed the installation while having my evening tea. The OS installation process has come a long way from Windows 95. In Windows Vista, it just asks you for:

1. Language
2. Country
3. Product Key
4. Hard disk Partition
5. Time zone (that too it takes correctly from the BIOS clock).

The total interaction is less than 5 minutes. Once the installer declares that it has all the information it needs, it really means that. It reboots the computer a couple of time and you are not required to interfere at any time. It has almost all the device drivers bundled in the operating system package. So it seems that the mammoth size of the OS and the number of lines of code looks to be well justified.

Of course the hardware I used last time around had one-third the memory of the current computer so I am not really comparing apples to apples yet. Also I had installed (at least tried to) most of my applications and had failed in that attempt. I am yet to install any application on this computer yet. Let's see what happens then.

The best thing I liked about Windows Vista RC1 is the diagnostic / troubleshooting capability of the OS. I have a on-board wireless card on my laptop computer that I am using for this test, but was not enabled. I have wireless internet access.  I tried to get on the internet thinking I had it enabled. Windows gave me an error that it is not able to reach the Internet and would I like it to find out what the problem is. When I asked it to find out what the problem was it told me that the wireless card may not have been enabled and that I could possibly enable it using a key combination on the keyboard or using a switch on the laptop (In fact I had to press Fn+F2 to enable it). Would my computer novice mother understand remains to be seen. But one thing is clear the diagnosis was precise and correct. Even if she may not understand or know what the key combination is or where the switch might be present on the computer, at least this time she can read the error and tell me or any other computer savvy person who can then help her. So this is a great advance in user friendliness from Microsoft. I will likely put in a screenshot of the same if I can.

The diagnostic and troubleshooting capability sort of make Windows a self healing operating system. The only thing now needed is to try and repair the problem on it own wiithout intervention. I think that will need a lot of work before anyone can incorporate that in their software.

As already mentioned, the driver repository is so huge, that any device I connect gets recognised immediately and installed without intervention. I tried connecting an external DVD-Writer and a web-cam. I unfortunately don't have a printer to check, but I think it would also work seamlessly. I will try to get a test for the printer as well. Again I will try to test as many devices as I realistically and within my budget can.

Other issue I had last time was the UAC. It still is there and I personally think that it is a good idea to leave it active although you can disable it quite easily. One of the things that Microsoft can improve in UAC is to try to remember the user's preference for the programs that Windows know are genuine and valid. That will reduce the UAC prompts by a great deal and improve the user experience.

The only problem is that I cannot run Aero Glass on the my current configuration as I have 64 MB of video memory and Vista requires 128 MB of video memory. I think there are tweaks workaround available, but I have not searched / worked extensively on this. I am sure I will be able to get it working once I spend enough time on that. Some might argue that the hardware requirement for Windows Vista is too high. I agree with all of that. But also in today's age where silicon is becoming cheaper, a 2 GB memory is not unrealistic in home computer and so is video memory. In fact a couple of years back I installed an external AGP card on my computer back in India with 64 MB RAM and that cost me Rs. 2500 (approximately $ 50) just to play games. So I think a card with 128 MB or even 256 MB should not be really hard to imagine.

Today probably I will install, MS Office and some protection software on the computer and see how it behaves. Beta 2 did not work at all with Webroot spysweeper and a bunch of other software. I will try a bunch of software and see.

All in all I think Microsoft has done a lot of good work in bringing Vista to the point it is right now from Beta 2. I think there is still some work to do but I think in the end Windows Vista will come out a winner.