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Welcome to my Vista RC1 Diary! So I installed Windows Vista RC1 on Sunday, September 4th and Id like to share my experiences with the brand new operating system with you. And since I think its rather boring to write the usual review this time I decided to go with a diary-style article and report about my experience with Windows Vista for the next 14 days. I believe the timing is perfect since I will have time to use Windows Vista in my spare time, for business and take it with me on my vacation on September 15th. Well see how the system works out in all three categories. Dont be mad if I cannot post something here a couple of days - it probably means that Windows Vista worked great and there is nothing new to report (or that I got furious with Vista)...

The test machine
I am using my new Media Center notebook that I bought in June 2006...

Intel Pentium M (Centrino) with 2 Ghz
2048 MB RAM
ATI X700 mobility graphics with 256 MB VRAM
100 GB SATA-Harddisk
17 Widescreen-Display
Realtek HD integrated sound
Matshita UJ-845D CD/DVD writer

Day 1 - Sunday, September 3rd (Installation and first steps)
I downloaded Windows Vista RC1 (German and English) within approx. 8 hours and installed the German version first. For compatibility reasons I decided to make it a dualboot with Windows XP Media Center Edition. I booted directly from DVD and the setup went totally fine. Like I wrote in earlier reviews it is not just easy but incredibly fast - 28 minutes after booting from DVD I saw the Windows Vista Desktop. Nice!

I noticed that, except for my integrated onboard sound card, every piece of hardware was properly installed - according to the Device Manager. Since I was tired the only thing I wanted to do was connecting the notebook to the home cinema beamer and the sound system in the bedroom. Yes, I was eager to watch a DVD! Ive never been entirely happy with the picture quality of the integrated DVD playback software (Media Player AND Media Center): Compared with WinDVD 7.0 Platinum the image looks washed out. I had this issue on every single machine Ive used so far - WinDVD 7.0 just offers a far better picture than the integrated software (and no, I am not being payed to say that - its just the way it is). I was a bit surprised to see that Windows Vista switched from Aero Glass to Basic after I started WinDVD - it worked fine with builds from the 54xx series - weird. But I am watching a DVD and I dont intend to glance at the beautiful user interface anyway! I quickly connected the beamer and restarted the system. It was connected properly and it even detected the rather exotic resolution of 848x480 - Windows XP NEVER offered me this native resolution. I had to struggle with PowerStrip all the time. One of the reasons I am using a new HD-Beamer in my living room (1280x720).
Anyway, I extended the picture on the video projector and kept the Vista desktop on my notebook. So I dragged the WinDVD 7.0 window to the video projector, entered fullscreen mode and watched a bit. I then decided to close the notebook lid and I expected the video to just keep playing - I was cautious and disabled every action for closing the lid in the control panel. Something weird then happened: Vista shut down the notebook display and changed the projector to the main screen. It also kept changing the resolution to 1024x768 which is NOT a good resolution for this machine with its native resolution of 848x480. I opened the notebook lid again and now the notebook display was treated as the secondary display by Windows Vista. What kind of behaviour is this? I was totally unable to revert those settings back - I actually had to restart the machine and unplug the projector in order to be able to use the 1400x900 resolution of the notebook. Since I JUST wanted to play a DVD but now have to deal with such weird issues I booted back to Windows XP MCE - and wow, all of a sudden the projector works as a secondary display and NOTHING changes when I close the lid of the notebook. Windows Vista should enable everyone to make a choice about the displays and not get stuck with any settings. Thats buggy!

So with Windows XP I had to fiddle with PowerStrip for the right resolution one time and now I am fiddling with the resolution and priorities of the different displays all the time. So I choose the lesser evil and work with Windows XP whenever I want to connect my Media Center notebook to a projector - a scenario thats not so exotiv. Perhaps I will try working this issue out but so far I have no real idea where to start. More clarity? To hell with it...

Day 2 - Monday, September 4th (Compatibility)
So I tried to install the english version of Windows Vista RC1 on my main machine - I wanted to use it as my production machine as I did with earlier builds. This time things just did not want to work out of me. I keep getting a MEMORY_MANAGEMENT blue screen of death all the time - even with NO drivers or ANY application installed. I have never experienced this blue screen before with any builds but since Pre-RC1 5536 I am not able to use Vista on my main machine here anymore. It keeps crashing after a couple of minutes and especially when I am performing file operations like installing applications or just copying files. So I am going back to Windows XP here, as well. Poor. Apparently other people have this kind of problem, too.

Back on the notebook: I am installing the first wave of applications I am using regularly on my notebook. Heres the list:

Over the time I will install more applications such as development tools but for now I am ready to start working with RC1!

Day 3 - Tuesday, September 5th (Performance)
For the first time I tried to work with Windows Vista RC1 and so far my experience is rather good. I wrote an article for a magazine with Word 2003 which means I had to use Office, PhotoImpact, Photoshop and the web extensively. No problems at all! Everything went very smooth and it is fun working with the new AERO UI. But my normal workflow did not improve with Windows Vista - I did not complete my work any faster or easier with Microsofts new operating system. In fact, Vista ended up getting in my way for example while accessing the network (renamed folders in RC1 did not refresh for example) or while struggling with the inconsistent UI that Paul Thurrott already mentions here. If I would use this machine MAINLY as my business laptop I would (as a customer) not buy Windows Vista. At least, not yet. Ive been to PDC, Mix06 and TechEd 2006 conferences and I have seen a lot of VERY interesting Vista-only applications - so I guess whenever these are finished I would consider an upgrade from Windows XP.

Another issue I noticed: Compared to Windows XP some applications that are accessing the hard disk vastly still need some performance optimization. For example: It takes NetObjects Fusion 9 in Windows Vista almost 8-10 seconds when opening a webpage. With Windows XP it only takes between 2-4 seconds. Hard disk operations are still somewhat slow. Especially when accessing media files (videos, pictures) with Vista Media Center or the Windows Explorer it takes the system significantly longer to display these files. But since weve already seen A LOT improvements in this area with past builds I believe Microsoft should be able to resolve this issue with the final version (RTM).

However, whenever Vista or 3rd party software makes heavy use of Memory or the CPU I immediatelly noticed the new kernel architecture: All memory/arithmetic operations (e.g. converting a movie file, encryption, compressing) finished approx. 25% faster than they did in Windows XP. I should also note that two games I installed today (Far Cry and Age of Empires III) loaded up and performed faster, as well. I am also much happier with the multitasking-performance: I always load up multiple instances of IE, Explorer and most of my applications which means that most of the times I use at least 30-50 applications simultaneously. Windows Vista is capable of handling all this workload significantly better than its predecessor did or still does.

I am left with mixed feelings here on day 3. The performance is sometimes much better and sometimes much worse than before (with XP) - depends on the kind of operation youre performing. When it comes to strictly using my business applications I did not notice a difference at all. Its not easier or (to use marketing slang) sleeker, more clear or anything.

Day 4 - Wednesday, September 6th (Search experience)
I noticed that Windows Vista took up more hard drive space than I expected so I tried to the brand new and obviously important search feature. I opened the enhanced search mode and tried to filter out files that take up 100 MB or more. I hit Search and the whole system suddenly responded slower than my old 486 with 100 Mhz from 1994 or even did not respond at all. The Search feature is something I will only use in an ABSOLUTE EMERGENCY since it eats up all my CPU, memory and hard disk performance! Totally stupid. There needs to be something done about that immediatelly.

Day 5 - Thursday, September 7th (Nothing happens)
Today its business as usual. Since my applications are all running fine with Vista there is neither something to cheer nor to complain about! However, I noticed that sometimes Windows Vista decides to take a break. Which means: The system seems to be occupied with something (lots of hard disk activities) for a couple of seconds but then turns back to normal.

Day 6 - Terrible slowdown
I dont know what I did but while making a Skype call the CPU usage and the hard disk activities went amok - I only heard my partners strutter (and so did they receive me):

Now after a couple of days I start to notice the tiny little bugs that Vista is trying to put in my way. For example I cannot select multiple pictures with Ulead PhotoImpact! Another (really) huge problem is that I cannot access shared folders from another Vista RC1 machine in my network. Seriously, its impossible - Ive enabled file sharing for everyone, even enabled a guest account and explicitly enabled file sharing in the Network Center (and so on). I tried every way I know to access network folders but they just wouldnt display on this machine. As soon as I boot to XP on the machine I get access (of course...).

Check back to see the latest updates on my experience with Windows Vista RC1!

Sandro Villinger