Irfan’s Corner on the Web On Mac, Linux, Grid, Virtualization and Software Technology

Vista’s interface a ’step back,’?

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I came across this story running on MacWorld, claiming that the user interface in Vista is slower and hence a step back from Windows XP. Because of the latency the researchers say that Windows Vista interface is where Windows 98 was!

To quote from the article:

""Menu latency is the time it takes an operating system to display a menu,” said Pfeiffer. “In Windows, it’s not immediate. That’s not a speed or performance issue, but a design choice.”

The new UIF data put Windows Vista, and its Aero graphical interface, behind Windows XP, which had showed improvement over earlier Microsoft operating systems. Menu latency, Pfeiffer said, remains a major problem in Vista, which scored 20 percent slower than XP. “Windows XP was a major step forward from Windows 98, but Vista is back to where 98 was,” Pfeiffer said."

First I wondered, after having used Vista myself I found no discernable difference between either Windows XP or Vista operating system. I investigated in which workstations the tests were conducted, according to the full PDF report, the following systems were used:

The Dual 2.8Ghz Dell Dimension, I googled for it and came acroos this: The Dell Dimension 9150 a 2.8 Ghz Dual Core machine, according to the official Dell website at here, this is a Vista Capable machine, which according to here in the Dell website means: Can Boot the OS but without running any applications or game! (see this). So hardly a system which would run Windows Vista at its optimum speed.

The Dell XPS 3.2 Ghz Machine however, is an optimum Windows XP machine: With 3.2 Ghz Pentium 4, 256 MB RAM (in standard configuration). I dont know about the Mac workstations so no comment about them.

So this hardly looks like a fair comparison, I would like to see a test where all operating systems are run on optimum performance.

First Experiences with Windows Vista

I've been a long time Linux user, recently someone asked me what were the advantages of Linux compared to Windows Vista, to be honest I didn't know the answer primarily because I had never used Windows Vista. And online sources such as Slashdot.org are unreliable when it comes to Linux vs. Windows debate, as they are biased towards Linux.

So I bought myself a copy of Windows Vista Ultimate and setup a machine with it. In the coming days I will post my experiences with Windows Vista and will be in a better position to objectively answer the advantages of Windows Vista compared to Linux.

My initial experiences in installing Windows Vista have been pretty good. Windows Vista has the simplest installer of any Windows version. However, its not the simplest installer I've ever seen. The Installer of OpenSUSE 10.2 most notably stands out. I especially like the way the OpenSUSE 10.2 installer makes decisions on your behalf, like partitioning schemes etc. Where-as partitioning and disk selection is still manual in Windows Vista.

Once Vista completed installing, I was not at all amazed by the eye candy. The transition in user interface design from Windows XP to Windows 9x was huge, and less so with Windows XP to Windows Vista. Infact there are softwares which change the look and feel og Windows XP to that of Windows Vista.

There was much ado about the resource requirements of Windows Vista, and how it will force people to upgrade their hardware. I'm running Windows Vista on a Pentium 2.8 Ghz HT, 80 GB SATA, 512MB+256MB RAM, and a Radeon 9600 (which is now considered legacy), and I'm getting smooth performance. However a true picture of performance requirements will emerge once some software is installed in it.

Vista looks 'visibly' more secure. That is there are popups asking you that some certain application is about to execute, there are popups for messages from applications. Sometimes it can be annoying thats why I may disable User Account Control. I've disabled the standard Windows Firewall, and tried installing Sygate Professional, one of my favorite firewall for Windows, however due to compatability problems it wont install.

The start menu has been redesigned, and to be honest, I think the Windows XP one was better. Recently a new design of the 'K Menu was added to OpenSuse 10.2, and I like the way its structured and its really easy to access applications, however in the Windows Vista menu, its not easy because all applications are displayed as a single list. See the screenshots to see what I mean.

And Compare this to the OpenSUSE 10.2 menu

And while I was taking the first screenshot, I came across the first user interface bug, I have seen it being reported somewhere while Vista was till beta, but its still not fixed in the final release. As you can see when I go about saving the image and click on the drop down button instead of seeing a hiearchical list of the file system, I see a list of recent websites visited!

So my verdict about Vista in the first day is, that its not a definite improvement over previous Windows versions, most notable Windows XP, and surely not against other Operating Systems. Upto now I have not seen anything that is a geniune innovation. Microsoft trumpeted a lot about translucent windows and security in their add campaign, sure security is better now, but they can not claim it to be the 'most secure system ever', and translucent windows have been in MacOSX for years.