Vista - Vista Public Beta 2 Issues - Feedback for MS

I am a software developer and have recently downloaded Vista Beta 2 build
5384 x64 edition. I have experienced a number of issues with Vista which
marred the experience:

1. The Vista setup program does not support USB mice - I had to use the
keyboard to control it until Vista finished installing, upon which my Dell
USB mouse was finally recognised and started working.

2. The display settings UI does not seem well thought out. The initial user
interface presents a page of hyper-links to different settings which looks
good. When you actually click on say the "Display Settings" link, it doesn't
take you to a new page which you can navigate with the forward and back
buttons like you'd expect a hyperlink to, instead it pops up a dialog of
settings similar to the old Windows XP Display property sheet. The new Vista
UI is supposed to use a browser style interface - why is it mixing metaphores
like this?

3. Performance in general seems to be very slow on a Dual 3.4GHz Xeon with
Hyper-Threading, 1GB of RAM and an NVIDIA 6800 Ultra card (Vista rating 3)
and it is obvious that not everything is being double buffered. Our own
scientific imaging application, Volocity (www.improvision.com/Volocity) is
unable to use hardware accelerated Open GL (probably due to the beta NVIDIA
drivers) and even 2-D drawing with DirectDraw is incredibly slow and flickery
due to the selective lack of double-buffering.

4. My monitors resync every time a security dialog appears - this is not
good as it puts a strain on them.

5. There are way too many security dialogs - do I really need to click on
one just to change the date and time?

5. Multiple monitor support seems messed up - I was not able to set my LCD
panel to use its highest res (1024x768). Whenever I tried, the settings
would reset, my LCD would set itself back to 800x600 and my CRT would become
the secondary monitor instead of the primary monitor like it is supposed to
be. Maybe this is a problem with the beta NVIDIA drivers?

6. The start menu is too cluttered and the distinction between individual
items has been lost due to the removal of the icons. In particular, the
"Computer" option needs to be much more distinctive and belongs near the top
as it one of the most frequently used items.

7. The new inplace browser to view available programs in the start menu is
awkward to use because the available space is very cramped and requires much
more clicking just to see what programs are available. I much prefer the old
hierarchical menu system.

8. I haven't seen any sign of the new 3-D Alt-Tab window navigation system.
Is this something I have to turn on?

Personally I think MS still has a lot of work to do on this release (yeah, I
know - it's still a beta). The UI is starting to grow on me, though. It
doesn't seem to have the ton of flashy 3-D animations I was expecting (mostly
just subtle things like the scale-down window minimisation animation), but
possibly this is a good thing.

You posted the same question 4 times within 10 minutes?


"Oliver David Stuart" <OliverDavidStuart@discussions.microsoft.com> wrote in
message news:43D34B81-EE29-4DC8-B1E9-BD7D449B2DA9@microsoft.com...
>I am a software developer and have recently downloaded Vista Beta 2 build
> 5384 x64 edition. I have experienced a number of issues with Vista which
> marred the experience:
>
> 1. The Vista setup program does not support USB mice - I had to use the
> keyboard to control it until Vista finished installing, upon which my Dell
> USB mouse was finally recognised and started working.
>
> 2. The display settings UI does not seem well thought out. The initial
> user
> interface presents a page of hyper-links to different settings which looks
> good. When you actually click on say the "Display Settings" link, it
> doesn't
> take you to a new page which you can navigate with the forward and back
> buttons like you'd expect a hyperlink to, instead it pops up a dialog of
> settings similar to the old Windows XP Display property sheet. The new
> Vista
> UI is supposed to use a browser style interface - why is it mixing
> metaphores
> like this?
>
> 3. Performance in general seems to be very slow on a Dual 3.4GHz Xeon with
> Hyper-Threading, 1GB of RAM and an NVIDIA 6800 Ultra card (Vista rating 3)
> and it is obvious that not everything is being double buffered. Our own
> scientific imaging application, Volocity (www.improvision.com/Volocity) is
> unable to use hardware accelerated Open GL (probably due to the beta
> NVIDIA
> drivers) and even 2-D drawing with DirectDraw is incredibly slow and
> flickery
> due to the selective lack of double-buffering.
>
> 4. My monitors resync every time a security dialog appears - this is not
> good as it puts a strain on them.
>
> 5. There are way too many security dialogs - do I really need to click on
> one just to change the date and time?
>
> 5. Multiple monitor support seems messed up - I was not able to set my LCD
> panel to use its highest res (1024x768). Whenever I tried, the settings
> would reset, my LCD would set itself back to 800x600 and my CRT would
> become
> the secondary monitor instead of the primary monitor like it is supposed
> to
> be. Maybe this is a problem with the beta NVIDIA drivers?
>
> 6. The start menu is too cluttered and the distinction between individual
> items has been lost due to the removal of the icons. In particular, the
> "Computer" option needs to be much more distinctive and belongs near the
> top
> as it one of the most frequently used items.
>
> 7. The new inplace browser to view available programs in the start menu is
> awkward to use because the available space is very cramped and requires
> much
> more clicking just to see what programs are available. I much prefer the
> old
> hierarchical menu system.
>
> 8. I haven't seen any sign of the new 3-D Alt-Tab window navigation
> system.
> Is this something I have to turn on?
>
> Personally I think MS still has a lot of work to do on this release (yeah,
> I
> know - it's still a beta). The UI is starting to grow on me, though. It
> doesn't seem to have the ton of flashy 3-D animations I was expecting
> (mostly
> just subtle things like the scale-down window minimisation animation), but
> possibly this is a good thing.
>

The web interface kept giving me an error saying it "could not process my
request at this time" so I tried to submit my post several times. It was
lying.

"Bones" wrote:

> You posted the same question 4 times within 10 minutes?
>
>
> "Oliver David Stuart" <OliverDavidStuart@discussions.microsoft.com> wrote in
> message news:43D34B81-EE29-4DC8-B1E9-BD7D449B2DA9@microsoft.com...
> >I am a software developer and have recently downloaded Vista Beta 2 build
> > 5384 x64 edition. I have experienced a number of issues with Vista which
> > marred the experience:
> >
> > 1. The Vista setup program does not support USB mice - I had to use the
> > keyboard to control it until Vista finished installing, upon which my Dell
> > USB mouse was finally recognised and started working.
> >
> > 2. The display settings UI does not seem well thought out. The initial
> > user
> > interface presents a page of hyper-links to different settings which looks
> > good. When you actually click on say the "Display Settings" link, it
> > doesn't
> > take you to a new page which you can navigate with the forward and back
> > buttons like you'd expect a hyperlink to, instead it pops up a dialog of
> > settings similar to the old Windows XP Display property sheet. The new
> > Vista
> > UI is supposed to use a browser style interface - why is it mixing
> > metaphores
> > like this?
> >
> > 3. Performance in general seems to be very slow on a Dual 3.4GHz Xeon with
> > Hyper-Threading, 1GB of RAM and an NVIDIA 6800 Ultra card (Vista rating 3)
> > and it is obvious that not everything is being double buffered. Our own
> > scientific imaging application, Volocity (www.improvision.com/Volocity) is
> > unable to use hardware accelerated Open GL (probably due to the beta
> > NVIDIA
> > drivers) and even 2-D drawing with DirectDraw is incredibly slow and
> > flickery
> > due to the selective lack of double-buffering.
> >
> > 4. My monitors resync every time a security dialog appears - this is not
> > good as it puts a strain on them.
> >
> > 5. There are way too many security dialogs - do I really need to click on
> > one just to change the date and time?
> >
> > 5. Multiple monitor support seems messed up - I was not able to set my LCD
> > panel to use its highest res (1024x768). Whenever I tried, the settings
> > would reset, my LCD would set itself back to 800x600 and my CRT would
> > become
> > the secondary monitor instead of the primary monitor like it is supposed
> > to
> > be. Maybe this is a problem with the beta NVIDIA drivers?
> >
> > 6. The start menu is too cluttered and the distinction between individual
> > items has been lost due to the removal of the icons. In particular, the
> > "Computer" option needs to be much more distinctive and belongs near the
> > top
> > as it one of the most frequently used items.
> >
> > 7. The new inplace browser to view available programs in the start menu is
> > awkward to use because the available space is very cramped and requires
> > much
> > more clicking just to see what programs are available. I much prefer the
> > old
> > hierarchical menu system.
> >
> > 8. I haven't seen any sign of the new 3-D Alt-Tab window navigation
> > system.
> > Is this something I have to turn on?
> >
> > Personally I think MS still has a lot of work to do on this release (yeah,
> > I
> > know - it's still a beta). The UI is starting to grow on me, though. It
> > doesn't seem to have the ton of flashy 3-D animations I was expecting
> > (mostly
> > just subtle things like the scale-down window minimisation animation), but
> > possibly this is a good thing.
> >
>
>
>