Microsoft Windows Vista: So Pretty

When I heard about the introduction of Window Vista, a cold chill ran down my spine. Microsoft is notorious for rushing an OS onto the shelves only to find it is full of holes. Holes so big you could drive a mac truck right through and no one would be any the wiser. In addition Microsoft also likes to slip little “Media Control Modules” such as DMCA. Many computers came directly from the store with DMCA already enabled. We wouldn’t want anyone to get anything for FREE now would we? All those poor starving rock stars.

With all the talk of the Trusted Computing Group, a group who intends to control every aspect of computing right down to the hardware that runs them. Microsoft is a member of the TCG, so one must really question the intentions of Vista. Especially since Microsoft’s track record has proven them to be a company more concerned with the bottom line than really bringing you a better computing experience.

Looking through the new features of vista, you don’t really find anything new. Just old stuff with a pretty new skin and twice the memory usage. My favorite new feature was the improved Internet Explorer. The new IE, offers tabbed browsing. Something the original internet explorer didn’t AND Firefox has since day one. Heck even Mozilla had tabs. IE doesn’t really thrill me. Especially when Firefox is reliable,secure and free.

Then there is Auto-Defrag, Something that shouldn’t be needed anyway, if Microsoft would just switch to an ext3 filesystem, or some other FS that doesn’t scatter data all over your drive. Mac has not required defrag in a a very long time and Linux has switched to journaled file systems (like ext3) which make defrag obsolete. Microsoft? Lagging behind are we?

In the screenshots I have viewed of Windows Vista, I see lots and lots of eye candy. Eye Candy means less HD space, higher RAM and Processor usage. Not really a big improvement. Besides there are Theme Mangers for Windows XP that are just as good if not better. Even KDE3 on Linux distros can really whip out some Eye Candy if your looking for a FREE OS.

Ultimatley Windows Vista bring nothing with it that independent and open-source software has not already. If I were you I would not bother picking up a copy of Vista as soon as it comes out, at least wait for the THIRD Service pack and you can be sure they have at least some of the flaws fixed.