A Brief Note:

Before we begin with this week's installment, where we take a peek at the changes to the user interface in Windows Vista, I want to take a moment to address what is likely to be a question some of you may have in light of events in the tech blogging world over the past week or so.

CNet News was among many websites that covered the story of Microsoft sending out Acer Ferrari laptops to various bloggers, preloaded with Vista.  There have been degrees of spin added to this story, with Microsoft saying they are review laptops and should be returned, a general public outcry over attempted bribery to get better reviews of the OS, and several of the affected bloggers claiming they would keep the laptop and that they would not let it bias their upcoming reviews.

This review series is 100% laptop gift-free.  I've been evaluating and testing Windows Vista Ultimate since the first public beta release all the way up through RTM code on an aging Dell Dimension 4700 that was sitting around the office.  So while those reviews are going to give you a picture of Vista "as it was meant to be", this series looks at Vista as you would experience it on a middle-of-the-road PC you might have at home. 

Aside from being lucky enough to have a job that allows and encourages me to write these sorts of items, I have been in no way compensated or "paid-off" for this review.  I've nothing to gain by painting things in a more favorably light than I see them.

And now, back to our regularly schedule article...  Touring Windows Vista Part 2 - UI Changes & Additions.

4.  Adjusting to a Vista World

There are a lot of changes to Windows Vista that will throw off most casual users.

  

Lets start with the new and improved desktop UI.  As you can see, things look a lot different with the new start menu, the sidebar and the Windows Explorer interface.

 

The New Start Menu

The new Start Menu is likely to cause a lot of headaches to users in how it has completely turned around how everything works.  Gone is the expanding menus like we've grown accustomed to in every version of windows since Windows 95.  Now the Start Menu acts more like the classic Windows Explorer in tree mode, only you're limited to items in your start menu, and you can't stretch the window to see more.  The screenshot to the left shows you the default view and an expanded view taking you a layer or two down the programs list.

 

The programs list aside, there are a few other changes to the basic Start Menu UI that doesn't make a whole heck of a lot of sense at first glance.  For starters, I challenge you to find the "Run" option, a staple to power users who often need to quickly fire up a command prompt, or an application they have setup to call by name.  If you look hard enough, you will find it.  Here:

All Programs > Accessories > Run

So quick and simple to get to, huh?  You can actually have it added back to the Start Menu by right clicking on the start button, selecting properties, click on customize, then scroll down and check the box next to Run Command.  This will add it right below "Help and Support" 

But you know the funny thing?  You don't actually need it anymore.  Turns out the "Run" functionality is built into the new Start Menu, it's just not really labeled anywhere.  See that text field at the bottom with the little magnifying glass in it?  The one that says "Start Search"?  Type in whatever command you'd normally put into the Run window, and the result is the same!  It will also do a real-time search across files in your start menu, recent documents, as well as your IE history to find similarly named items. 

Despite the lack of intuitiveness and the about-face versus how previous versions of Windows handle things, I actually like this.  The search bar also reminds me a little bit of Spotlight from Apple.  Not quite the same, but has that feel.

Now for a Start Menu change I'm less than thrilled about; shutting down.  In previous versions of Windows you at most have a Logoff, Shutdown and Switch User button.  The shutdown button gives you the option of Standby (Sleep), Shutdown and Restart.  Pretty straight-forward.  The shutdown button is usually the universal power symbol.

But in Vista, everything changes!  Now the shutdown/sleep/restart options are very confusing and don't actually make any sense regardless of what operating system you've used in the past.  This is a totally new, and completely horrible way to do it and I know I'm going to spend years explaining to family members how to turn their PCs off once they move to Vista.

To the right you'll see the new shutdown UI.  You see that power symbol?  The one pretty much universally understood to mean "Off/On"?  Guess what happens when you press that button.  Your PC goes to sleep.  That's right, it doesn't shut down, it doesn't restart, it goes to sleep.  The Lock is reasonable enough, it locks the screen so you have to enter your user password to continue using the machine.  But it's that little side arrow that gets me.  To me, a little arrow like that means "More Options" but it also means "Secondary and less important functions".  Unfortunately, that's where all of the useful options are hidden.  It's in that little secondary menu that you can actually shutdown or restart your PC, not to mention log off so others can use the system.  Oh, and you get the Sleep and Lock options AGAIN.  To me, it would make the most sense to place the most used functions on the icon buttons and place the less used options in the secondary menu.  But that's just me... and did you hear how many people were on the team that designed the new Start Menu?  24!  It took 24 people to redesign something that didn't need redesigning.

Beyond the changes to the way the Programs Menu is browsed, the power options and the new run/search bar functionality, the rest of the differences in the Start Menu are just different ways to paint the new system.  It's all Aero-ified and such.  The rest of your standard options are there and pretty easy to spot.

The Sidebar

The crazy part here is that Microsoft is suddenly getting on-board with the whole "Gadget" thing, and like when Apple entered the arena, doing a fairly half-assed job of it.  Regardless of technical implementation, this is going to be the first exposure to gadgets that most users will ever have.  How well does MS do it though?

Well, despite any issues developers have with it from a technical standpoint, it does LOOK nice if you have the screen real estate to use.  On a 17" LCD running at 1280x1024, it actually doesn't take up a whole lot of space, and if I'm not running apps in full-window mode, it looks like it can provide me with some valuable information without getting in the way.  My current sidebar has a clock, a rotating picture viewer, an RSS news reader (all placed by default), a weather gadget, and a calendar.  Nothing really out of the ordinary, and the default ones all look nice and polished.

For most of us though, we've seen this before with Konfabulator, DesktopX and Dashboard.  By comparison, the gadgets that Microsoft is supporting are pretty basic, no-frills data readers.  You won't be seeing anything complex like many DesktopX gadgets you get here at WinCustomize.  (We are working on making gadgets that work with the sidebar, so never fear, feature-rich gadgets are coming!)

So they look nice, and some basic ones are packaged by default.  The one thing MS does here is in how easy it is to add them, move them around, detach from the sidebar and place on the desktop.  It's smooth and "feels" good.  The emphasis here is to make it a friendly experience for end-users, which they accomplished even if they didn't actually make a good gadget engine, and even if the rest of us have been doing this stuff for years.

If you want to add gadgets, there is a plus symbol near the top of the sidebar, that will launch a window containing all of the gadgets you have on your system.  To place them on the sidebar, just grab and drag.  You'll see the gadget come to life when you drop it.  Like I said, very intuitive.  You can also place gadgets directly on the desktop, either drag them from the gadgets window, or from your sidebar.  Most of the default gadgets have a secondary (larger) display mode when placed on the desktop.

Now, if the default gadgets aren't enough for you, you can always take a stroll over to the Microsoft Gadget Gallery to see what users have created and uploaded for your enjoyment.  The gallery is a pretty big mess, and the preview icons are washed out so it's not very easy to browse through the gadgets trying to find one you may like.  It's a good idea poorly implemented.  Unless Microsoft drastically improves their gallery, users will start looking elsewhere for gadget content.

Aero/Glass & The New Windows Explorer

Aero, the shiny new GUI for Vista has received a great deal of public attention and scrutiny, so I'm not going to spend a great deal of time here chatting about it.  You've seen it, you know it all by heart.  Some claim it's just useless eye candy, others say it's the first sign of visual creativity Microsoft has exhibited in the more than 20 years it has been building and selling operating systems.  At the very least it's an attempt by Microsoft to establish a visual brand for Windows that it failed to accomplish with Luna under Windows XP.  What is my personal take?  I think it's just a GUI that I'll replace soon anyway with a new WindowBlinds skin.  It does manage to at least make Vista feel "next generation", which is a big part of their marketing effort.

However, one thing worth mentioning about the new Windows user environment in general is the file explorer.

The new Windows Explorer is for the most part the Old Windows Explorer with a nice new coat of paint, and a few extra options tossed in to sweeten the pot.

First off, the way Vista handles the tree view is ever so slightly tweaked.  As you dig deeper and deeper into your system, you maintain focus on the currently selected folder.  This means as you go down, you also shift further and further to the right.  However, the catch here is that there's no sideways scroll bar if you want to scan to the left.  You have to expand the column holding the tree view to get a wider look at the folder structure.  This "feels" nice, but can be annoying to anyone who spends much time digging around in their systems much.  It's an attempt to reduce scrolling ala the panel browse view found in OS X, but it isn't done nearly as well.

Next, we have the information panel at the bottom of the screen that gives you the same sort of information you'd expect from "Details" on the side panel in the old explorer.  It is presented well and nicely integrates into the window.  Overall, information held in the Vista interface is better integrated and has a better feel to it.

Across the top of the window, you'll notice items like "Organize", "Views", "Explore" and "Burn"  These menus contain a lot of the functionality that you previously had to hunt around for in XP.  Organize, for example, contains much of what we're used to seeing in the right-click menu.  Create folders, copy, paste, select all, delete, rename, properties etc.  The other options are a little more interesting. 

View gives you a slider that allows you to switch the way the explorer displays items. More or less, you'll find the options you're used to from XP, but there's a slider bar on the left of the menu that lets you see in real-time the differences in view modes.  As you move from "Large Icons" to "Extra Large Icons" you'll see the icons scale seamlessly.  It's a nice touch that shows off the improved graphics engine behind Vista.

Burn is the other persistent menu item.  It does just what you think it would do, takes all items selected and sends them off through the CD burning wizard.

Beyond that, the options start to switch up a bit, since this bar is largely context-driven.  If you select a folder, you'll see "Explore", "E-mail" and "Share" appear.  Explore just opens up the folder, same as double-clicking.  E-mail will attempt to attach the item to a new mail message.  Share will walk you through the file sharing wizard to open that folder up to network users.  I'm not sure how I feel about the context menu, since it makes for an inconsistent bit of navigation.  It will likely be very confusing for new users when they try to find features that aren't displaying, only because they selected a file instead of a folder.

Explorer got a fair bit of UI love, as is evidenced by the context menus.  However I'm not sure it needed to be fixed over what was in XP.  It feels like they're trying to make the basic shell of the OS look and act more like an application, which is fine I suppose, but it will be confusing to many.

This week we made it through the most immediately obvious changes that most users will encounter with Windows Vista.  Next week, we'll dive deep into the new options hidden away in the Control Panel area, and look over some of the bundled games and applications that come with the OS.