Dave Hildebrand.com » Vista

Vista: 9 Months Later…

Dave — Tue, 21 Aug 2007 16:48:57 +0000

It has been 9 months since Vista has been released into the wild. Nearly a year ago, and before general release, I posted a comment on Vista. I had used it for about 2 weeks at work to test the various applications I run. At the time I thought it was the prettiest bloated cow I'd ever seen. I made the decision not to migrate our XP/2000 fleet any time soon. I didn't install XP at work until after SP2 was released. I think I will be waiting at least until SP2 for Vista as well. In fact, if M$ decides to support XP long term I may never migrate.

In related news, Jim Louderback is leaving PCMag for Revision3 and has some parting shots at Vista. Jim was a proud supporter of Vista since the launch, but after using it extensively he has changed his tune.

Viewpoints on Vista

Dave — Sat, 21 Oct 2006 14:23:44 +0000

Paul Thurrott has written an interesting article looking back to the early days of Vista's (longhorn) development. You can read about the 1st two articles here. It is worth a read to see how much optimistic Gates and the Windows folk were back in 2001. Vista today looks nothing like the idealistic view of Longhorn they had dreamed up. I can't wait for the rest of Paul's history comes out.

John Dvorak's latest PCMag article brings up some serious concerns for the possible inclusion of Windows Genuine Advantage in the retail release of Vista. John has been writing on technology for a very long time and I enjoy his articles immensly and his blog is on my daily list of reading.

Windows Live Writer

Dave — Tue, 26 Sep 2006 15:14:54 +0000

Today I am writing to you from my test install of Microsoft Windows Vista RC1 Build 5600 and Windows Live Writer Beta. I have been using Vista for about a week and so far so good. The Aero Glass interface is quite beautiful and I do like some of the security enhancements that have been made, but others have written about Vista so I will leave the critique to them.

I have also read good things about Live Writer, many of the blogs I read have said it is the best thing Microsoft has done in years. One issue that came up when I installed in on my Vista partition was the installer kept asking for .Net 2.0 to be installed even though it alredy was. Then the Live Writer install said it failed because of this. I took a look in my installed programs app and was puzzled when Live Writer was listed. Im not sure what happened but the install seems to have worked regardless of the previous errors.

One of the coolest features I've come across in my 10 minutes with Live Writer is the Windows Live Map. You can quickly paste a map into your blog post of any location in the world. Check it out.

Its the Golden Gate Bridge. Here is a closeup of the infamous Alcatraz.

Here is the lake infested area I live.

[tags]Microsoft, Vista, Live_Writer[/tags]