The “Break it Down” Blog

I would encourage you, if you have a chance, to fill out the “Is Windows Vista Ready?” survey. It’s got a confusing layout, but the way it works is along the left side are a ton of scenarios, and in each scenario are 5-20 questions. The most important questions are marked with stars. You can just click the “Is Vista Ready” scenario and fill out your impressions there.

My impressions are basically: I love the new UI work, I hate the hodge-podge mess of new UI with old UI from old admin tools. The system management/configuration options are so insanely cluttered and not laid out clearly. You have to dig for 10mins to find anything. I hate the new start menu and I hate the icons. Stability is OK but there are still stupid things happening like media player won’t play movies.

Overall I say no it’s not ready, and still stick to my original assessment that if they were preparing it like this for a November release NEXT year, then I think not only would it be ready, but smoking hot.

Update #1: The only way I can summarize my experience with Vista so far is this: If you EVER wanted to see Linux and Mac adoption rates soar… farther and higher than we had ever imagined, release Vista. This operating system is so completely far from being finished, so absolutely cluttered and confusing that it’s a joke. So far every USB device I’ve attached to my computer besides my keyboard and mouse has blown up with “Device not recognized”, even though it works on XP, Linux and Mac all out of the box. Every 3D application/game/etc. that I’ve tried to launch has caused the executable to crash out, invoking the system information-collection utility. Half the videos I’ve tried to play won’t work and crash Media Player. Embedded Media Player no longer works for sites like GameSpot to watch trailers. Drivers for one of the most common embedded sound processors on the market are not Vista compatible and warm me every time I boot. System performance tuning/benchmarking no longer BSODs my machine, but it crashes out every time.

This operating system feels exactly as it should given it’s history (2 restarts and like 4 managers). It’s totally junk. Oh wait, the Aero inteface is slick… that I’ll agree on.

Update #2: Ok well aparently it is ready according to Microsoft, 5728 was the last build of Vista before it goes RTM… I can’t wait to see where the chips fall on this one.