MA XIMUMPC OCTOBER 2005T
o make Windows easier to use,
and make every second spent with
your computer more effi cient, Vista
includes a ton of improvements in raw us-
ability. Everything from the built-in search
engine to the all-new document-browsing
interface will make it easier to get your
work done, so you can get back to using
your PC for fun.DOCUMENTS
We’ve already touched on Aero, but it’s im-
portant to realize the impact of the vector-
based renderer. Because onscreen compo-
nents scale infi nitely in either direction, the
OS can effortlessly create thumbnail imag-
es of every document, which will serve as
the document icon. Just as with OS X, you
can scale your icons from very small size to
massive. The difference is that on Vista, the
icons look crisp and clear at all sizes.
To clarify, we’re not just talking about
photos, we’re talking about Word docu-
ments, PDF fi les, HTML fi les, and video
fi les. (All of you folks that have 20 docu-
ments named “New Text Document.txt” on
your Desktop will dig this feature.)MODERN SEARCHING
The search in Windows XP sucks. It’s
slow, inaccurate, and the only “ad-
vanced” feature is that useless dog.
The first thing most power users do
is disable the default XP search anduse the Windows
2000-style one in-
stead, but that still
doesn’t fix the un-
derlying problem.
Even if you index
the contents of
your drive, it’s still
painfully slow and
searches only file
names by default.
Vista’s new
search is Google-
fast, and searches
damn near every-
thing on the hard
drive. Search looks
deep into the fi les
stored on your hard
drive. It indexes
the contents of all of your documents,
the metadata in movies and pictures,
and even your email messages. Type in
“Bob Johnson” and you’ll see every email
between you and Bob, all the documents
that reference Bob or were written byhim, and all the photos he’s taken and
sent you, all in a split second.
With the full-speed search in place,
we’re not sure what to expect from the
delayed WinFS subsystem (WinFS will ship
shortly after the initial release of Vista).PORTABLE PROFILES
Many homes these days include
multiple computers networked
together. But switching between PCs
can be a real nightmare, with different
bookmarks, email, and game saves on
every machine. These problems will
be a thing of the past with Vista’s new
profile-sharing feature.
Once you establish a relationship be-
tween your Vista computers, the OS will
transparently sync the contents of your
profi le directory with all the other comput-
ers. Everything saved in your “Documents
and Settings/User” folder—saved games,
pictures, music, email, bookmarks, and
documents—will be accessible when you
log on to any computer in your home.32
Your photos also get the Aero treatment. You can resize thumb-
nails from icon-size to nearly full-screen by moving a slider.The new Aero-ized Documents virtual folder will pull all the work documents you
have on your system into one easy-to-work-with area, and even shows thumbnails
of the pages!Usability Enhancements
Without new additions that let you use your computer more efficiently, all the eye candy in Vista is worthless.
The majority of usability enhancements will come with Beta 2, but here’s a look what’s new in Beta 1Windows
VISTA
Comes Together