Windows Vista Home Basic

Incase anyone was wondering what the basic non shader GUI for vista looks like. Found some screenies.

Actually looks quite nice, think I prefer it to the shader one with it's translucency effects.









Thought't I'd add part one of the feb release review:

http://www.winsupersite.com/reviews/winvista_5308.asp


I think it looks promising, and am quite looking forward to vista :)

Looking at it makes me want to become a suicide bomber.

Poor, boring, technologically inept ENAY.

Reminds me of CuBase (looks wise) for some reason

What's that???? The systray icons have escaped captivity and are roaming free on the task bar!!!

That's it boys, run! Run for your lives! :P

Geez! Looks like crap! Why, oh, why does the interface has to take more and more of the actual window (or desktop) every time?

It looks good. Can't wait for it to be released.

I think it looks quite simple and elegant, and not over designed like most 3rd party themes I see. Really like it myself.

Thanks for linking the shots, Evak.


Well, it is a Microsoft product, after all...

I actually think it looks quite nice. I'm quite taken with the reflective, shiny plastic look of the taskbar and buttons.

Anyway, even if you don't like it, there's bound to be bucket loads of options and themes you can play with to get a look you do like.

Pity I don't own a computer 'good enough' to run it. :/

Now .. which version to choose from? ..

* Starter
* Home Basic
* Home Premium
* Business
* Enterprise
* Ultimate
* Home Basic N
* Business N

I'm saving up for a Cray super-computer so I can run Notepad in transparent 3D window.

Seen WindowBlinds 5? It does what Vista does under XP. Sortof. It doesn't have reflections/refractions of underlying content, but it has hardware accelerated alpha blending on all components now.

Odd, it reminds me of MacOSX.

Oooh, I am going to buy a new PC especially for Vista.

yeah I tried windowsblinds, messed up some of my software though and decided to ban it from my puter.

I don't really care what the GUI looks like. So long as it works. I'm mostly interested in what it does for my applications and games.

As far as which version to pick. If you want the Vista exuivalent of XP professional with the fancy media parts added then just get ultimate. That combines the best of business, home and media adition. WHilst the basic version is going to be about $50 and be for libraries and office desktops where you only want to run office, email and www

I can't find a way to compare them in terms of visuals.

Nobody needs shiny window edges which hogs all the processing power.

I do - I am going to buy a new computer just for Vista.

You see naw, it already appeals to Puki. They must be doing something right with the shiny bits. Or maybe it was you mentioning them hogs that did it.

Vista really does look like it has Mac-Envy...

By the time they finally force me to downgrade to Vista, I sure hope that the classic mode is still available...

at least it doesn't have that silly dock. Overall I much prefer it to the mac.

I've had the vista UI on my system for yonks, I even moved the file/view etc menu to underneath the adress bar. :) I like the UI.

I just dong like Vista chomping my Hard-Drive Pie.

As for me, I'm hanging on to WinXP as long as I can...

My graphics card drivers already give me translucent windows.

Is there a version without the stupid effects and graphics?
Why an operating system must look pretty?
Bill , Bill , Bill.
Charge my bill.

> Why an operating system must look pretty?

It all started with that computer demo from the forties or fifties where they put light bulbs on it. Without the flash the unwashed masses have no idea something new was added.

To make you buy a bigger monitor and run it at higher resolutions to make the stuff appear smaller of course!

Anyhow, I'm with Wolron, going to keep with WinXP as long as possible, does everything I needed that Win98SE did, just without all the damned blue screens, see no reason to upgrade here, until the next "killer" game arrives which Microsoft decided to pay-their-way through to make exclusive to Vista.

I must say though that it does look quite nice, but as mentioned above, it takes a bit too much desktop space for the typical 1024x768 resolution...., my monitor only goes as high as 1280x1024.

Windows Vista with none of the crap:



(Windows XP+Windowblinds. I think someone mentioned it above :) )

Im unsure what to think of vista. Right now I'm not favouring it.

[edit] No idea how i did that!

Me neither...

I'm curious to see how the Vista roll-out will go... On one side there's a bunch of kids drooling over it, on the other side most corporate environments seem leery to switch, partially because of the ridiculous system requirements and the associated additional costs for office machines capable of running it.

Of course, it's not like you're going to have a choice sooner or later -- they simply will stop selling the older versions, and XP is already about to enter its secondary support phase, during which only critical updates gets released and nothing else. Before long that will expire too, and you simply won't get any updates... At some point you have to 'upgrade' (if you can consider it an upgrade... 'giving in to blackmail' would be another way of describing it), or you know every scriptkiddy on the planet will pwn your computer.

Before long? I'd definately call 2012 long.

So either it looks like MacOSX or it looks like GNOME? Not much of a choice there.

I think it looks more like Linux than Apple.

Weendows Veesta, that's what I call it. And just wait you guys for Weendows Vienna, that's the next one if you don't already know. My guess is it will be exactly the same as this one except that the start menu will hog even more of the screen with unneccesary crap.
But seriously, what more could you possibly add to what we have already?!!

It looks like a bunch of numbers jumping around in the system's processor?! Where?

In other words: What visual interface are you comparing this to :)

I only have one problem with this interface, and that's the start menu button. Is there anyone else that agrees with me about it looking really ugly, and too big?

A Higher price tag. :)

> In other words: What visual interface are you comparing this to :)

blah, blah, blah, is wot I says to you Mr. Pick.

@ Zenith, me says yup! :)

Oh no, not an even bigger "eye candy" OS.

Speed, stability, security, funtionality, simplicity and something which doesn't need half a gig of RAM just for the OS alone. Is that too much to ask from a multi billion dollar company? - I guess so.

eye candy is great for the first 10 minutes, but I'll be amazed if translucent windows actually end up having any real benefit at all.

Do desktop icons really have to be that big? - I guess the age of 1600x1200 minimum resolution is approaching fast.

yeah, thats why the icons are so big. They don't have to be that big though. My monitor doesn't go higher than 1280x1024 80hz and even at that res larger icons are nice.

I purposely put up the home basic screenshots at the start of the thread since those are from the new basic theme, without pixel shaders, and target lower spec systems. Equivalent to the current default XP theme were all familiar with now.

sadly, i wud like 2 disagree wif u Qube,, but i think you're right!

My personal opinion is that weedows veesta is much more quantity than quality.

morons

heh. I'm gonna get vista when its cheap xD.

Oh they do, they make it impossible to determine the title of cascading windows.

meh!......
apart consuming more resources & potentially running like
snail on dope, what does this new operating do thats
so damned special?...i havent read anything about it, jst
that its new and its better..blah blah...

personaly, i dont see any great need for shader driven
desktop gfx..other than perhaps allowing for some funky
interactive fx..

whats the price tag on this going to be?

Why get it at all? It's like paying for your own shackles, with all the built-in DRM.

> what does this new operating do thats so damned special?

What does XP do that's so damned special?

It [XP] doesn't crash with a BSOD every 7 minutes and 4 seconds....

If it runs fast (ie shutting down core parts of OS to make way for gaming), then I see a benefit.

What's the last time you played a game where the CPU was the limiting factor, rather than the graphics card?

Actually back when I was still using a GeForce3 a CPU upgrade made a huge difference. But now, I guess RAM usage is the major player.

Personally I find it rather convenient that the OS and other stuff keeps running in the background when I play a game.

It means that I am still reachable by ICQ/skype while playing, large file downloads will continue in the background, etc... Switching is just an ALT-TAB away.

You can already change the process priority of applications to 'low' so they won't interfere with your game (either manually through the taskmanager, or automatically by starting the program though something like this: %windir%\system32\cmd.exe /c start /belownormal " " "program.exe")

When half your OS unloads itself when you launch a game, you lose all that extra functionality as well while you play your game. And aside from that, it sounds like it will add a very noticable delay to the time it takes to launch or quit a game as well, since the OS will have to fluff all of its internals around, and unload/load who knows what first.

I usually skin Windows XP or leave it as the Win2000 look, because it looks better. That look just takes up too much space.

Sure it does. Depends on what kind of hardware you have, and how well supported the drivers are.

I've found that although XP doesn't have as many fatal crashes as previous versions of windows, its general operation of usage is far worse.

I find Xp runs great, and WAY WAY better than 2000 and 9x ever did. You should have tried the big apps on those old OS's.

XP actually runs Office 2003 faster on my old pentium 2 400 than win9x and win2k. My wife remarked on the significant improvement.

As far as stability goes, win2k used to need a restart on a daily basis. Where XP onlu needs to be booted every month or so when I install new beta drivers for my video card. I don't turn my system off for weeks on end, and rarely have problems, unless they are old hardware components. The last time was when my old HD died.

But... It's shiny!

Yeah, I know, Microsoft wasn't able to get their highly touted WinFS working with it in time, so it was scrapped for the time being.

(WinFS is a 'unified storage' system, whcih treats your filesystem as a database. No more 'files and folders', but everything 'virtualized' so you can search 'instantaneously' for any file/filetype. I guess it's aimed at people can't remember where they park their stuff, but otherwise? I can imagine that it will just lead to people either losing things left and right, or collecting even more junk they don't need. Supposedly based on SQL technology... But given how poorly SQL copes with unexpected power-off's, I'm very curious to see how stable this would be in a consumer environment)

Did I mention it was all new and shiny?

And then there is Monad, the next-generation command shell... Oh wait, that one won't be ready either. But LOOK at how shiny it is! Those windows almost glisten if you look at it just right!

And then there is... um... bigger and prettier windows!

prettier icons!

And.. um... it's shiny! I mean, just Look at it!

Also, It's a great reason to buy a new computer so you have enough horsepower to do exactly the same you've been doing all along! Except now it's shiny!

Oh! And now most people have bought a 17" or bigger screen, lets slap a sidebar on the screen, for important status messages... Like where to buy v1@9ra 4 ch33p. Don't worry, the market will come up with extra content to show there. It's like built-in software emulation of a 15" monitors usable desktop space. for free!

Did I mention how shiny it is? And it's better too! I mean, it is an upgrade. We're calling it an upgrade, right? Just because we're a monpolist that has been convicted of abusing our market position in multiple courts, doesn't mean we would do stuff that's bad, right?

Oh, and even though we have had dozens of critical security leaks in all of our previous operating systems, this one is going to be different! It's the most securest ever!!1!!1!one!!eleventy-one!!1! Just like we said XP was -- that one took a whole week before uPnP opened up a hole you could drive an aircraft carrier through. But now it's different, because we say so!

And those blue screens? forget about them! You'll never see another blue screen again! We added red screens now. that's a new feature, so it should count as a feature. Just look at all the new features! It's red! And it too is shiny!

but there is more! We also bolted on digital restrictions^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^Hrights management solutions. It's a solution, that's how good it is. We don't trust you any further than we can throw the money you pay us, so we'll prevent you from doing stuff on your own computer. I mean, we know what's best for you anyway, right? Just say 'yes'. Good boy, here's a pellet.

Now, Vista won't be the best operating system. that's going to be Vista 2.0, superduper even Vista-er. Maybe we'll get around to puting some of these nixed upgrades in it... If nothing else, you will be able to rent that one! forever! For just a small monthly payment of... did I say small? Don't quote me on that. But it will be the bestest ever!




Just trust us. It's so shiny! Just look at that!


...


sigh.

Bleh. I'm not pessimistic or anything. I guess I'll stop now.

Obviously those sorts of things won't be disabled while playing a game, because that would just cripple the whole system.

About the same way any Window's OS copes with an "unclean" power-down. The difference here is "scan disk" is now "damage repair" performed on the database.

I wonder if Vista will be like XP... in the effect that the system becomes about 500% more efficient when you shut off all the special effects eye candy and themes.

Read About Face by alan cooper... you all know alan, right?

I've seen SQL server completely annihilate several databases when losing power again while in the middle of an automatic database repair after an unclean shutdown... (unstable powersupply)

Just because it can do an automatic repair doesn't mean it's any good.

You might want to upgrade that Voodoo. :P

On the same system I find XP way way way more stable than win98. I found win2000 was just as stable but it was slower and games lagged considerably more on it.

XP is decent, but 2000 was more stable for me.

Two examples that come to mind:

- Without VPU recover feature enabled, my video adapter will periodically reboot my XP system.

- And another one: any time I play an xvid encoded video file on XP, and hit the fast-forward button in media player, then the rewind option, it *reboots* my computer instantaneously.

Neither of those situations would crash my system back when it was still running Win2000.

tell me more about this SQL issue... I don't want it to become an issue with www.recipicky.com (my latest project)

Not much to say, really... I had a server with several SQL databases. One day one of the redundant powersupplies started flaking out (it was giving 17 volts on the 12 volt line), leading to system instability and a handful of reboots a bouple of minutes apart from each other. Just enough time for the machine to restart, have SQL kick in, find that the previous start was unexpected and automatically do a datbaase validation/repair. To be followed by another reboot during the automated repair cycle. That was enough to make the entire DB unrecoverable. Good thing for backups.

yeah.... does SQL do automatic backups when it checks it? or is it just retarded in that respect?

I don't want to have 300,000 recipes only to log on one day and find the entire thing missing... I'd die, right there... I put so much work into that site.. haha...

My system was stable with a GeForce 3 on Win2000... but with my GeForce 6600 WinXP is more stable and faster too. I don't blame windows, I blame drivers.

No... So you need to make sure that you make regular backups of the database itself through the SQL scheduler, so you have something to revert to in case of failure.

(You can either choose to do just a daily full backup, or if you can't afford to lose a day's worth of work you can also do frequent backups of any changes that occured)

thanks a bunch, man... you are a life saver

Yeah.. SQL server can be a bit ugly. But then, the newer versions of Access are built on so-called "SQL technology", and they survive most powerdowns about as well as any other application.

I imagine a few power failures during a recovery of any file system might not be all that healthy to data. The hard drive itself can fry if unexpected powerdowns happen at an inopportune time.

That aside, I did a little reading on WinFS, and it's not a replacement for NTFS, but rather a sub-system to it. All files still get stored under NTFS. NTFS information regarding location, etc. to a file is stored in the WinFS subsystem, allowing a Vista (or XP, 2000, whatever OS they plan on releasing it on) service to query based on criteria such as author, etc, and find the file immediately much like you would to a standard SQL-based database.

So.. I suspect WinFS is a "simple" database not unlike Access or Foxpro, married enough to NTFS to allow faster searches, but not enough to be a major problem to disaster recovery.

Once again... all the answers to what MS is thinking with the winFS thing can be found in About Face, by Alan Cooper....

They really should call it CooperFS...

don't know but MS announced their plans for the new search tools in Vista 3 or 4 years ago. Something that apple liked and copied for OSX recently.

did they? About face came out in 95.

only 11 years ago.