candidgamera | Thoughts on Windows Vista

I'm using Windows Vista at work these days, and it's not too horrible. The installation image we use here apparently has some of the nagging security features turned off, which is a blessing. It boots very slowly, so there's that. It's also got that quirky widgets bar down the right hand side of the screen that takes up valuable icon space. You can close it, of course, but I find it interesting that they didn't just program the widgets to sit on your desktop without a special sidebar.

The most annoying thing so far - and I have no idea if this is a universal Vista thing or just my PC - is that I can't increase the desktop screen resolution back to what I had it using under XP. Which means, again, less usable desktop space for icons.

I don't like some of the changes under the hood, either - the only way to register a new file type extension is by having a file of that type and right-clicking it, and going through some steps. It used to be I could get to a file type management screen (which is still there) and add them there (but that feature was removed).

I do like the way the 'lock computer' functionality has been changed though - not a lot of technical difference is visible, but the presentation is good, and you can switch users while the PC is locked now.

My favorite feature has to be the 'window thumbnail' thing - when you hover your mouse cursor over a minimized item in the taskbar, you get a tiny visual representation of the window's contents. Handy for differentiating a bunch of browser sessions quickly.