Disclaimer: I am not responsible for anyone who messes up their computer after reading this post. If you are someone who isn’t confident with computers, stop reading now.

It seems everytime I visit an electronic store such as Best Buy I see at least one person talking to an employee about what antivirus software is best for Windows. As an average user they are taught to fear for the safety of their bits and taught that Windows has some open door policy for attacks. The scariest part of this is that they buy this software without really looking deeper into why it exists. They figure it is an absolute necessity because everyone talks about it.

A lot of these people will end up on message boards throughout the internet stating the same thing: “My PC is so slow after only three months!!! VISTA SUCKS!” You would think it was some crazy epidemic; that Vista implodes (or explodes?) and becomes slow from too much use. At least I figure this is what some people think since most other material position in life has this characteristic.

The big thing these people don’t realize is that some software is worse than the viruses and spamware they thought it would block. Users across the globe install this software not realizing it leeches itself on tons of different events and processes on their systems. For instance, AVG will latch onto Internet Explorer to tell you whether or not links are safe! Thanks AVG for installing an inefficiency on my system! Similar software like Norton will attach itself to your email client to make sure that everything you do is virus free!

I have been antivirus and anti-spamware free for roughly seven years now. Once I gave up the idea that I needed extra protection I stopped having problems. Coincidental? I think not! This anti-* software is good for some things though: cleaning up a mess you make. So it stands that if you don’t make a mess, you won’t need the software.

I plead you to join the revolution. Educate yourself a little into how attacks happen and how you are protected by Vista itself (ie. don’t turn down UAC). Don’t click oddball links that promise you something and be concious when you are using the computer. Use things like common sense and good judgement. If a long lost buddy is sending you an email with a program in it, think twice about opening that attachment. Join the millions of people who don’t run anti-* software because they don’t need it. Join us in not dishing out millions of dollars to companies that “protect” us only to be strapped into their system.

A lot of buzz going around about the new release of Safari which I must say seems plenty fast. I think this is more due to the fact that it doesn’t wait to start rendering stuff. Loading facebook is fast, but loading images on facebook is still painfully slow.

Anyways, I enjoy using Chrome because it is a painless and lightweight alternative to IE, although it does crash every now and then just like every other browser. Where the two new browsers fail is in support for new Windows 7 features like the title bar drag. While you can drag a Safari browser around by the tabs (which is a dumb idea) if you drag to the top and maximize, you can’t drag out of the maximized size. The same goes for Chrome, however I must give Chrome some props because it doesn’t use the entire top bar for two tabs!

What would be nice if Safari (and IE!) adopted Chrome’s look but implemented title bar drag by allowing users to drag from the area to the left and right of the tabs. Or if they abandoned the approach altogether and came back to a uniform look and feel to software.

Oh and thanks Google and Apple for not even using Aero!

So now that I have had the Beta for a couple of days and even got it installed on its own partition I have noticed a few things…

+ The taskbar is amazing. I guess I never realized how little I actually needed the old task bar until now. I am still on the fence about grouping but am trying to force myself to radical change by adopting the “move it to the side” campaign. Essentially this includes running the taskbar in its default 7 state and moving it to either side of the monitor. While I find myself going to click at the bottom of the screen sometimes, my efficiency has not dropped. I can still find applications easily and quickly. However this is not a usual circumstance yet as I have not bloated up the drive with all my software.

+ The explorer got some major improvements since Vista. When I go into work I actually dread using XP. The explorer in XP is horrendous compared to that of Vista and the latter is like a retarded stepchild of Se7en’s beautiful explorer. My favorite part of the new bits? Favorites! Finally Microsoft has removed the useless built-in sidebar and allowed us to add our own important folders. My only hope now is that every application (HINT HINT Adobe!) will use this format! [b]Update:[/b] Bjoern says you can add your favorites in Vista by adding links to the “C:\Users\\Links” folder.

+ Libraries. They may be a basic implementation but boy are they powerful and useful. Imagine all of your stuff (that’s right I said stuff) located in one virtual spot despite being located physically throughout the drive. My first step with libraries was to create a Logs library for quickly viewing logs of my favorite applications. It removes the need to step through hundreds of directories when I need access to them.

+ The small stuff. People are saying this is Vista SP2 and “what Vista should have been” and they are right. For me it is the attention to detail that makes Windows 7 so great. Being able to see the desktop without losing window locations (Aero Peek) or the sliding animation of the thumbnail viewer. The biggest attention to detail I have seen? Standardization. Microsoft is a large company with hundreds (if not thousands) of pieces of software and naturally these were not very standardized. It is killing the company very quietly because of what Apple did, and I don’t agree with that either. Windows 7 takes a good step in a good direction with the inclusion of the Ribbon in more places and the semi-standard toolbar theme (found originally in Vista’s explorer). There are thousands of more things for me to discover and cover, so I will just leave them to you to find.

+ The bug fixing. I am going to touch on this not because of 7 directly but rather because of what Vista did. After using Vista for so long having to go back to XP is just flat out an annoying experience. To the point above, the little things matter and the bugs in XP are some of the most annoying bugs. Thankfully they have been addressed in Vista, and expanded upon in Se7en. What bugs am I talking about? Multi-monitor support in XP was pretty horrid; at work when I switch to an application via the taskbar it will randomly pop up a window on the other monitor. Let’s say I have IE open on one and Visual Studio on the other. When I click to goto VS, IE gets covered by another application! Hopefully you can see how annoying this can be. The other major bug that irritates me every day? The natural ability of XP to steal focus away from you just when you start typing. Today I am typing in IE as Visual Studio opens when all of a sudden my typing stops making words. What happened? Well of course XP switched focus to Visual Studio! Thankfully neither of these have been a problem since Vista.

- The instability. Yes, I know, it is a beta. The problem is that it is the ONLY beta we are seeing. After this it is supposedly RC0 and then RTM. Hopefully they can sort out the instability problems in that timeframe. For the record I got a BSOD this morning. “PAGE_FAULT_IN_NON_PAGED_AREA” or something to that effect. In fact I get this sometimes in Vista and think it is due to my system rather than the OS. I ran memory tests and they all passed so I am thoroughly confused. Oh well.

- IE8. The reason I like Chrome is because it is basic, lightweight, fast, simple. How many other adjectives do you want Microsoft? You need to either focus on a lightweight version of IE or fix it. IE8 crashes more times than I hit the A key today. It is likely to crash while writing this. And I know, beta software. The problem is Beta 1 on Vista wasn’t nearly this bad! The worst part is that a single tab crash still brings down every single tab. I thought a major reason for going the modular route was to prevent that Microsoft?

- The backwards compatibility. It is 2009 Microsoft and I suggest that for your next OS you drop 32bit all together. I also suggest you drop the “Program Files” directory for “Programs” or better yet, virtualize them and make them fast. Stop supporting these legacy systems, increase the phase out program. Make Windows leaner, meaner and ready to fight toe to toe with tomorrow’s OS, not an OS designed and developed 11 years ago.

- Integration will be the key to success for any OS in the future. Google and Apple know this and have built their platforms around it. Microsoft is, as usual, late to the game. While Live Services has been picking up the pace in taking on this attitude, the OS is a far ways away from full integration with the Microsoft “platform.” Think of all the hardware you support from Zune to WiMo to the 360. These things should all be tightly wound into your services and more importantly your OS. They should feel and look connected rather than this Games-For-Windows-Live-is-really-Windows-Live-is-really-Xbox-Live-kind-of-I-think-sort-of-complicated-web-bullcrap.

It is no secret that I am a Windows fanboi to the extreme. I have used the OS ever since the early days of DOS and have used every single version including the horrendous Millenium Edition. I have often defended attacks on Vista because they are mostly founded on rumors. However when Windows 7 was announced I knew Microsoft had to hit a home run. It had to do something big in one way or another and they had to deliver on their promises. In essence, they couldn’t drop a single one of the gigantic balls they were carrying.

Now that the Windows 7 Beta went public I finally got my grubby little paws on a “copy” (download) and installed it within VirtualPC. I am only five minutes into using it and I already want to replace my Vista install with it. The big change is bigger than I thought, a problem that Microsoft marketing will have to overcome. What is the big change? The UI just makes sense. I guess it never occurred to me that Vista’s UI was confusing because it wasn’t to me. In my opinion, I always found Vista’s UI to be vastly superior to XP. Finding my documents, code, etc has never been easier until five minutes ago.

But it isn’t just about finding your data. Settings and general functionality of the OS is also much more discoverable. I am finding myself easily flowing through the control panel. The task bar, which I imagined to be a horrible gimmick, is something I will have to get used to but will grow to love. I can see why they made the changes. Finding your windows is easy and finding your favorite applications is easy.

While I am sure there will be problems with W7, I am blown out of the water that Microsoft actually took the time to work on the UI in such fine detail. Hopefully they carry the styling and standardization to their other applications like Office and Visual Studio.

It seems as though Microsoft is putting a lot of work into Windows 7. Much more than we (the public) ever thought. And it also seems that they have been working on a lot of the details which is a VERY good thing. Among the new UI functionality and look, I find this to be one of the coolest additions: Color Hot Tracking. It extracts color information from the icon and moves the glow around based on your mouse position. As a UI guy, this gets my blood pumping. As a consumer, it is nice to see they are changing the taskbar finally.

However, I must say that I love my current taskbar. I wish I could have the new graphical features with the current style: text and small icon. Why? Because I am dependent on knowing where each Window is on the taskbar and getting feedback by quickly reading the text. If I have multiple Messenger windows open, it is nice to be able to quickly scan them rather than having to use a grouping mechanism which requires 2 (or more) clicks.

Anyways, Windows 7 has been really exciting for me. Aside from Visual Studio 2010, W7 is starting to be the most exciting software release ever for me. I just hope Microsoft follows through on this one…

IE8 Beta 2 is out! Here I am running it on Vista Ultimate X64:

Tonight I was tasked with the job of reinstalling Vista on my sister’s new Dell laptop. Why? Because for some odd reason, Dell doesn’t know how to install an operating system correctly and she was having constant problems. Anyways, after installing the OS (which took ~30 minutes, w00t), I ran Windows update. This, for the first time for me, decided to continually reboot the machine after it was “done” with the install.

Hmm. Well, I went into the extra options mode (F8 during Bios) and ran the Directory Services Restore / Repair Mode. This got me to a “Configuring updates” screen which was farther than before. After finishing the machine rebooted and kept restarting. So I did it again, and this time the updates were able to finish!

[b]Update (07/07/08):[/b] It started doing it again. After some tracking on the web I found out it has to do with an outdated driver that came with the Dell Vista install disc. Installing Vista SP1 did the trick, but to get there I had to put the drive into IDE mode (via the BIOS) so Windows could boot.

Ben Curry has made an excellent post about installing SharePoint 2007 on WS2008 by slipstreaming SP1 updates. I am now running SharePoint and AD on my internal server!

Long Zheng of istartedsomething has started an initiative for bringing attention to Microsoft the biggest problems facing the Windows UI. Head on over to the Windows UX Task Force page to submit ideas, problems and inconsistencies with the current Windows UI.