Windows Vista Build 5231 Review 390
An anonymous reader writes "Microsoft has just released a new build for Windows Vista and it looks like Microsoft has made quite a few graphical changes. "This is possibly the only application with more anticipation surrounding it than Internet Explorer 7, if not Vista itself. We wonder if Microsoft would bundle Windows Media Player 11 with Vista exclusively or would it be available for download separately for Windows XP as well. It most certainly will end up looking a lot better (graphically) than most music players out there, iTunes included. Although it appears to look pretty straightforward, the interface has changed drastically, which makes it far more attractive than Windows Media Player 10 as well as competing applications."
But.... (Score:5, Insightful)
If i wouldn't have gotten a mac I don't know if I would have ever gone past winamp 2.x
AmaroK (Score:4, Interesting)
(pretty) gets album cover to display so you can visualize
(good) manages your preferences/statistics (you can see what you are listening to)
(pretty) presents those informations in an aesthetic way
(good) or just gets minimized to the systray
(good) all operations are two to three clicks away.
Re:But.... (Score:5, Insightful)
I need it to sync with my portable player.
I need it to do a good job of scanning my computer for media.
Despite everyone's best guess...I do not need it to be a portal for purchasing anything...
Re:But.... (Score:2, Insightful)
Why not use a CD writing application for this?
I need it to sync with my portable player.
I'd rather just be able to drag & drop files I wanted to use on the player onto the player's icon under My Computer, rather than having to use a media player to manage it.
I need it to do a good job of scanning my computer for media.
Why not store all your media in a single location? That's a much simpler solution.
Re:But.... (Score:5, Insightful)
People like to connect the dots. "i go *here* to play my media, why can't i burn my playlists from here as well?"
I'd rather just be able to drag & drop files I wanted to use on the player onto the player's icon under My Computer, rather than having to use a media player to manage it.
two words: Custom playlists. Instead of having to reselect an entire range of files stored in seperate subfolders (from the original albums) I can simply transfer the playlist in one go (see above burning as well).
Why not store all your media in a single location? That's a much simpler solution.
Because "My Music" is not your music, and shared music is not everything on my machine, and I don't always want everything together, and because whichever p2p software by default stores it in one place, and something else stores it in another, and my mp3 player comes up in a different drive, and instead of being a jack of all trades and needing to tell people how to configure every single piece of media software on the planet (to look for media in one place) I would just like to scan my machine and find it all for me.
I understand you like operating using single individual steps, but not everyone is as savvy as yourself and just wants a simple life, your steps may be simple, and once configured it might be easy to manage, but its getting started thats the problem.
People already have the option to do all the things you suggest, and most who do similar to yourself won't like this new media player, but for the rest of the population, the suggested features don't seem out of step at all.
Re:But.... (Score:5, Insightful)
That is an excellent point. It is also a perfect example of how people still don't understand the desktop. You don't go to Windows Media Player to play your media. You go to "My Music" or wherever. People still use the old DOS way of doing stuff: Run the application, then click open, then browse to the location. That's backwards. If they went to the location first, then they could do all of the things the GP post is talking about right from there (copy, rename, delete, organize, burn, play,
You point out the issues with sharing, and applications creating multiple folders, etc. So you do make a good point: Users won't ever "get" the desktop analogy until the software uses it properly. Until 95% of apps start using these folders properly, it won't be useful.
Re:But.... (Score:3, Insightful)
I end up using stuff like Winamp 2.X and Media Player Classic, because those things do exactly what I expect them to without a lot of extra fluff.
Re:But.... (Score:5, Insightful)
That's because the current systems are still designed around the old DOS way of doing things, instead of being truly object-oriented - they just try to look like it. Click on a document in a folder. What happens ? A program starts up, reads the file and presumably shows you the results. This is, behind the scenes, exactly what happens in DOS. Furthermore, the program cannot be easily reused by other programs, unless it was specifically designed that way. Modern GUIs simply generate the command line automatically; but the actual operating paradigm is unchanged.
This system is very inefficient. Imagine you have several documents open at once. For each of these, there is at least a single thread (and associated stack and other system resources) that does nothing but sits around waiting for events most of the time.
The system is also very fragile. The desktop system (as well as almost all other systems, like web and database servers) depends heavily on communication between different programs. However, when heavy communication meets the combination of direct memory access programming paradigm with no bound checking of any kind of C and the difficulty of checking for and defending against every possible kind of malformed communication, buffer overflows are an unavoidable result. The situation is not helped by the nonexistent security paradigms of Unix (try to make it impossible for a program to write anywhere except in a subdirectory of your home directory without having root privileges on Linux) or Windows.
So, what is needed is an operating system designed from grounds up.
Make the system completely object-based. An application is not a program; it is a class that implements the Application interface. It doesn't get started, it gets instantiated. When you click on a file on a file manager, the a thread calls the appropriate even-handler method on the manager; that method most likely creates a new thread and has it instantiate the file viewer object; when the viewer's initialization method has been completed, the thread returns and, since there's no more methods on the stack, it exits (of course the initialization method is free to run as long as neccessary, or spawn a thousand other threads if needed). When the viewer needs to be told of a keypress or mouseclick or needs to be redrawn (or simply when some timer set by the initialization method expires) a new thread gets created for the purpose. No threads are wasted on waiting in the event loops of a hundred viewers, no more single thread managing 10 different windows (which means that if it crashes, they all close, and if any is engaged in a long-running operation, they all block).
Such objects are inherently reusable. Currently, if you want code to be reused, you need to put it to a library. This requires extra effort from the programmers point of view, and so programs and libraries tend to be strictly separated; if you want to reuse the functionality of another program (like burn CD's), you'd better hope that the code is in a library or that the other program was designed to be remotely controlled. With programs made by combining objects, however, the chances are that the burning code is in a class of its own, and can be easily reused.
So, basically, desktop paradigm is not understood by many because it is not implemented by any operating system that I know of. Windows and Gnome just make a show of supporting it; under the hood, everything still works just like it ever did, which means that you get a lot less grief by using the system in a program-centric fashion, for that is how it really operates, deep down.
Re:But.... (Score:3, Insightful)
I am quite aware of this property of CLI. We, however, are talking about GUI programs that don't communicate using standard input/output; because of this, the ability to redirect said input and output is pretty useless for communicating between them. It does work well when a gr
Re:But.... (Score:4, Interesting)
Store all your media in a single location? Yes, it's a much more simple solution, and also less flexible as you aren't working on an abstract enough level to e.g. cover multiple physical and/or network drives, and so on. Sometimes you actually want this, and then you can use one of these players, and you'd once again get "your single location" point of access -- the media player's metadata-powered music library.
Re:But.... (Score:3, Insightful)
You know, I used to think that too. So I bought an Aiwa CDC-MP3 for my car, and a few more CD MP3 players after that, and what I learned from it was that organizing music files manually takes way too long, and is a total pain in the ass.
It's so much nicer to highlight a bunch of tracks and hit a button, knowing that they're going to be
Summary (Score:5, Insightful)
Here, let me summarize the parent post in one concise sentence:
"Why not do things the way I do them?"
Answer : Not everyone wants to do things the way you do them.
Re:But.... (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:But.... (Score:5, Interesting)
If i wouldn't have gotten a mac I don't know if I would have ever gone past winamp 2.x
Well, as far as video goes I'm more than happy with Media Player Classic. It's basicly a WMP6.4(!) clone but able to play DVDs+++. No skinning, in fact 99.9% of the time I use it is in fullscreen playback with no UI at all. Haven't seen any feature in WMP7-10 that would make me change back.
As far as music goes, I know a lot of people have much more desire to organize and sort and do multiple playlists and ratings and even eyecandy while listening to music. Both Winamp, WMP and iTunes have made a lot of progress since Winamp 2.x here. I'm mostly like you, not really in the market but it's definately there.
Kjella
Re:But.... (Score:3, Insightful)
It definately works out better than Microsoft's Media player. Only thing I use it for are the couple of DRM'd files that I have that WMP Classic won't handle. Still waiting for a crack for WMP9 Video DRM so that I can unprotect my files and ditch MS's player completely.
I sti
Re:But.... (Score:2, Insightful)
They're making an application to suit as many people as possible. If it doesn't suit you, don't use it.
Re:But.... (Score:2)
The problem is, that they're a monopoly that is very good at making content providers use technologies that are tied to their products. When you get a media file that can only be played by Windows Media Player, you have no choice but to use it.
Re:But.... (Score:2)
Exactly. For example mplayer can be run with and without GUI. Even though I tried the GUI I usually run it without it because it just stands in the way and mplayer supports excellent navigation without GUI. (For example I can skip 15 minutes by hitting cursor-down or 5 seconds with the mouse-wheel - no other player I know supports something like that)
Re:But.... (Score:5, Funny)
Feh... (Score:5, Funny)
for godsake use a mirror (Score:2, Interesting)
Looks Ok... (Score:3, Funny)
More screenies here [winsupersite.com] (if
Re:Looks Ok... (Score:2, Interesting)
Better looking media player? (Score:2, Insightful)
Who the hell wants one of those? I use VLC and Foobar2000 [foobar2000.org] to get away from that crap!
There's nothing more pathetic than apps trying to emulate the look of physical appliances, like all DVD-players do for instance. It's like some idiotic idea that just won't go away, no matter how truly stupid and fugly it is.
Re:Better looking media player? (Score:4, Insightful)
off google (Score:5, Informative)
http://www.winsupersite.com/showcase/winvista_523
Re:off google (Score:2, Insightful)
The GUI is dead. Bash, time to step up and take its place.
Re:off google (Score:2)
And what the hell is with the explorer screenshots? Why is the toolbar above the menu? That's fucked up!
Re:off google (Score:2)
You don't think it's running like that because the user configured it so?
WMP is nowadays configurable to run in approx. as a 100x20 pixels large bar.
Re:off google (Score:2)
Marketing first, function second... (Score:4, Interesting)
Now maybe since the thing looks prettier, they'll start working on adding some revolutionary functionality. I think that consumers valuing function over appearance are the minority of those who will be spending money, however.
You can fault Microsoft for not being much of a software company if you wish, but their business/marketing/money-making talent is second to none.
Re:Marketing first, function second... (Score:3, Informative)
Well, that's a problem. If you decide to add functionality, especially revolutionary functionality, after you've fleshed out your framework and GUI, then you have weird-ass code that isn't cohesive, nor coherent. You should start with the functionality, and finish with the bells and whistles.
Re: (Score:2)
Too much Player! (Score:5, Insightful)
This obsession with skins and enormous toolbars and wasted screen real estate drives me nuts. Winamp was good because there was virtually nothing wasted in the display. iTunes also realizes the media is more important than the player. When will Microsoft and Real catch up?
Re:Too much Player! (Score:2)
In contrast, the last time I used iTunes I couldn't find any way of making it want to take up less than almost all of my avialable screen real estate. That's a pain in the arse when I'm trying to actually do something with my P
Re:Too much Player! (Score:2)
That way if someone is talking to me I can hit a key and pause my music without having to hunt for the window then hunt for a small button on it. Or if you're inside a game you can still jump songs without having to switch out. Definately worth trying if you've never done
iTunes takes up too much real estate? (Score:2)
Re:iTunes takes up too much real estate? (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Re:Too much Player! (Score:2)
I use it on a Mac.
Re: (Score:2)
Re:Too much Player! (Score:3, Informative)
Then you haven't seen the "new and improved" Winamp 5.
When will Microsoft and Real catch up?
Uh? WMP 9 [windowsitpro.com]
Re:When will they catch up? (Score:2)
yes of course because people use windows now because they just have to have an x86/x64 processor! the reasons windows has 90% of the market are not related to which processor Apple uses and will remain there when they switch to intel. The only difference is that macos and windows might be able to live on the same computer (if apple wants that and I doubt it). Even if that happens, peopl
Complimenting on how smoothly stuff scrolls... (Score:5, Interesting)
Quote:
We have never seen any WMP run this smooth especially on a beta release. While this might not mean much to anybody, it's a step in the right direction for Microsoft. Only thing we need to check now is how smoothly it runs while running a plethora of other applications in the end.
One thing we would like to mention is that our library had 1000+ songs, but there were no hiccups while scrolling through the list. It was almost like scrolling down Google's search results, which is very smooth and hassle-free. This could be due to implementation of Microsoft's new graphics technologies, namely XAML and WGF 2.0. Needless to say, this is definitely something to get excited about, since we can clearly remember the times when we launched WMP 10 and it would get stuck at the guide page, thereby making the user experience terrible.
Re:Complimenting on how smoothly stuff scrolls... (Score:2, Interesting)
This makes you wonder... Why would you describe how smooth scrolling down a text-only html page is? Modern computers are around 1000 times faster than they were when that got smo
Slashdotted Already... (Score:5, Funny)
They're using Apache on Linux. (Score:2)
http://toolbar.netcraft.com/site_report?url=http:/
I'd be inclined to blame their use of PHP for their server troubles. PHP has shown time and time again that it is unsuitable for sites receiving many hits, unless you can throw massive amounts of hardware at it.
Re:They're using Apache on Linux. (Score:2)
php can handle the load. Most of the time it's the databaseserver which dies. High traffic sites must avoid querying the database as much as possible. Cache all semi-static pages.
I've got a server which withstood a slashdotting without any problem, despite using php. I just didn't have a backend database...
seriously (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:seriously (Score:2)
Re:seriously (Score:2)
Re:seriously (Score:3, Informative)
Ever heard of Fitt's Law?
It's also a good thing to display information in a clean, uncluttered. It improves efficiency when scanning the screen for the information you need, and it reduces stress (really!) and makes for an easy-to-love interface [jnd.org].
Runner up (Score:2, Insightful)
I really, really, really enjoy the extreme and skillful strategic positioning of Apple and MacOS X by the mastermind Steve Jobs.
No matter what Bill Gates will show, Jobs will include a similar, but better version in the next MacOS X update. By doing that, all new features of Windows Vista will look old and outdated when finally released. And give us Mac users ammo for years to come.
This is so beautifully played, someone should make a drama movie about it.
Re:Runner up (Score:3, Funny)
Yeah all 39 of you.......
Re:Runner up (Score:2)
Some working screenshots (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Some working screenshots (Score:2)
Re:Some working screenshots (Score:2)
"WHEEEY USER! You thought you'd click on the desktop, but what you didn't realize in fact, was that you clicked on the hidden window!!!! OMGLOL! Since you clicked on the X button, we've gone and closed the WMP for you!!!! Enjoy your productivity!!!!"
In other news (Score:4, Funny)
Mmmm Fresh.... (Score:4, Insightful)
Seriously. Vista is going to flop, mainly because XP can already do what people need their computers to do. No reason to upgrade. So beyond the initial rush of people keeping up with the Jones', it'll peter out pretty quickly. Then Microsoft will blitz every media source even harder and attack linux some more. Frankly, this sucks. I would rather have a root canal than have Vista ever get released. Just do it quietly, please.
Re:Mmmm Fresh.... (Score:2, Insightful)
"Hello this is Ms. Patel with "insert company name, Dell, Gateway, whatever..." "Yes, I would like to purchise the 1299 special that includes the free printer and flat screen."
"Eccelent," She says.
"Just do me one favor, take out Vista."
Ms. Patel replies, "I don't understand."
I reiterate, "I do not want windows."
"Ok that will be 1499 and no printer or flat screen."
Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)
A plague on all media players (Score:5, Insightful)
iTunes, Windows Media Player, RealPlayer: the truth is, they're all badly behaved applications, and they are a pain. They're all getting bloated, they all suffer from featuritis.
And not one of them seems to more than about 10% devoted to serving actual user needs. They are 90% devoted to pushing someone's agenda--sometimes blatantly, sometimes insidiously.
I install security patches to Windows and Mac OS fairly routinely, but frankly I'm loathe to update any media player, and terrified to install a new one.
The percentage of times that installing a new version of a media player will break something that used to work is higher than the mortality rate from playing Russian roulette.
And they all seem to grow invasivelyinto your operating system like rootlets into a sewer.
When they are clean and functional and do what I want them to do instead of what someone else wants them to do, then I will be very interested in how they look.
PC Mag has the pictures to (Score:5, Interesting)
I like that window selection thing (Score:2, Offtopic)
Anything like that for enlightenment?
Actually scratch that, I guess it's probably possable quite easily with maximising the pager with some keybinding...still, I've seen some good ideas on quickly navigating to the window you want, which should be useful.
Media Centre Shell? (Score:3, Interesting)
Adware free this time? (Score:2)
Not an official release? (Score:2)
Attractive is subjective (Score:3, Interesting)
I can't get to the article, but I doubt Microsoft will left me down by elevating their "style" above the lowest common denominator. Besides, in a Media Player, I spend much more time looking at the media than the player.
iTunes (Score:2, Insightful)
More Trash From the Fisher-Price-GUI Developers (Score:3, Interesting)
As for Media Player's GUI, does anyone stare at their media player all day, admiring it, or do you fire up a playlist and then minimize it (or if playing video, maximize it to get rid of the GUI entirely).
There's nothing whatever in Vista worth waiting for. What is there I neither want nor need. Right now, I'm running a clone of the Mac OSX GUI on XP. It's easy on the eyes, and doesn't require a video card from Industrial Light and Magic to run.
Sorry, Redmond. Not interested.
One positive aspect of Vista amongst the noise (Score:3, Insightful)
I think Vista might actually be quite good after all.
Internet Explorer 7 (Score:3, Interesting)
All I ask for is an IE7 that is standards compliant with at least HTML4, CSS1, CSS2, Javascript, and can properly show alpha transparency in PNG's. I'm so sick of having to make an entirely different stylesheet just for IE to display my website's in a way that is usable.
They could amaze me by properly supporting SVG and canvas too. I can't imagine IE supporting SVG and canvas any sooner than the year 2020 at the rate they're going. If they had any brains whatsoever they'd give up the IE rendering engine and just use Gecko. To me, it seems that would be the easiest and cheapest way to keep end-users from switching to other browsers such as Firefox.
As long as IE sucks I have no reason to think Microsoft has the ability to make a decent program let alone a decent operating system and dsktop enviroment.
Re:Not working (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Not working (Score:5, Funny)
"This looks pretty good- the graphic stuff doesn't really excite me, but I am interested in the way that it will integrate with my portable devices. I really like the move toward the better/more integrated syncing in Windows Media 10, so this should be even better.
While I am not too concerned about the new features, I wonder what the hardware specs of this will be. I guess I will need to upgrade my computer, but I'll wait on that. I'll probably move to Vista about 12 months after launch. But at work I am in the process of getting a new computer and I'm trying to load it up with everything possible. It's hard to explain to my boss (a gamer) why I need the best possible video card in the workstation I run a text editor on.
Oh, and I wonder if we'll be able to skin this version of Windows. I eventually liked the bubblegum blue theme, but it took a while. I hope they have a classic (bubblegum blue) mode!"
There..that's it. This is what I would have said if the article was available. And I would have tried to post it as close to the top of the page as possible (replying to another post which is unrelated) just to whore some Karma...which I've already whored enough of that it doesn't really matter.
Re:Not working (Score:2)
Windows' Vista Control Panel [winsupersite.com] OS X's System Panel [pbase.com]
Which would you prefer to use?
Re:Not working (Score:3, Informative)
OS X appears to have a decent category view.
However, the Vista screenshot you linked was in Classic view. Not only that, but it was in details view.
XP's category view kinda blows, but let's see the Category view on Vista first.
(Posted by someone who will NOT be running Vista. I'm just interested because I may well end up having to support the thing...)
Re:Not working (Score:2)
So far looking at the pug-ugly new dialog of, say, the power schemes, I'd say the look and feel on Vista has a LONG way to go until we can finally judge whether it's comparable to OSX or not.
-Jar.
Re:Not working (Score:3, Interesting)
Category view [computerpe...ance.co.uk] from build 5112. Another full screen [tcmagazine.info] shot with the menu bar on the left.
Icon view [extremetech.com]
Personally, I use the classic view in XP, setting it to show a menu in the Start Menu. I know where I want to go, and it's nice that the options haven't changed much since 95. It's nice that they don't go renaming and regrouping the different options every release.
I do like the category view in Vista better than XP. The "quick links" to oft-used functions in each c
Re:Not working (Score:3, Interesting)
However, the new Category view is something I would actually use, as it looks like a no-BS thing. Like you said, the quick links are now there, making things easier. And, in Category view on XP, sometimes I have to guess as to where a control panel will be (sometimes, it's under two levels!), so I just drop it to Classic, where I can go by alphabetic order.
Re:Not working (Score:2)
Re:Not working (Score:3, Interesting)
Compact Alphabetical list > Giant oversized icons
Re:Not working (Score:4, Informative)
Go to the desktop, View>Show View Options,
You can:
-change the icon size
-change the text size
-uncheck snap to grid
Re:Not working (Score:2)
Re:Not working (Score:3, Informative)
In regards to Media Players, they were on version 6 for the longest time IIRC then 6.4 became the defacto player and favorite among many because it was lightweight and fast.
Someone can correct me, I'm just going from memory here:
7 started that DRM crap and had that skinnable crap as well and was a resource hog. There was a Mac version but I d
MIRRORS (Score:5, Informative)
Comment removed (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Not working (Score:2)
Re:And? (Score:4, Funny)
If I wanted to know how Vista was doing...
Dude, these stories don't get posted here for information value - it's so we can reduce their pitiful Windows servers to a heap of smoking rubble. Which we're very successful at doing, thankyewverymuch.
Re:And? (Score:3, Insightful)
Does the same apply to the latest weekly Ubuntu release or Mac speed bump, or do you have sliding standards for different products?
Re:And? (Score:2)
For the Mac, god yes. But slashdot being an OSDL site, I expect to get more information about OSS than other software, just like I'd expect MSDN to have more articles on MS software than that from other vendors.
Re:Cotton candy interfaces suck (Score:5, Insightful)
I mean, look at this screenshot:
http://www.winsupersite.com/images/showcase/vista
Look at all the text there! That's not a very good interface for finding the icon you want quickly and efficiently. There's too much textual distraction.
There there is something like: http://www.winsupersite.com/images/showcase/vista
It takes forever to find out what it is you can click on, since buttons and other components are not well defined. I mean, is each album entry something I can click on? What will happen if I do click on them?
I hope that the Linux desktop community does not fall victim to the same shenanigans. GUIs are best when they consist of well-designed components, each with a clear and well-understood function. Microsoft's new fascination with random text/image mixtures is often counterintuitive and leads to applications which are difficult to use.
Re:Cotton candy interfaces suck (Score:2)
Re:Cotton candy interfaces suck (Score:2)
Re:Cotton candy interfaces suck (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Cotton candy interfaces suck (Score:2)
Cotton candy interfaces are the way forward (Score:2)
in terms of a good UI I think that you need to make it simple for the least experienced users to get the most out of it as quickly as possible. more advanced users will always want to customise the experience, so let them do it. but make it easy for the learners first.
While I agree with the point that learners should get priority because more experienced users know how to bypass all the fluffy stuff and get to the functionality, CyricZ has a point. The screenshots he linked to show that the designers ha
Re:Bloat! (Score:2)
Well, it added auto-CDDB via Gracenote.
It also now reads the data from the CD digitally, ostensibly tunes it up somehow, and feeds that to your speakers rather than using the direct CD audio connection between your CD and your soundcard like the old one did.
Comment removed (Score:4, Insightful)
Linux killed OSX my ass (Score:3, Interesting)
I do agree that Microsoft will be much more compelling with the release of Vista, but I don't think Micorosoft will be able to kill Apple as easily as all that. Quite a few features in Vista were copied from OSX (Remember the early Longhorn releases with that huge sidebar on the right? That dissapeared after Microsoft saw OSX 10.4). And while sparkle wi