Microsoft's new operating system is made with security in mind, but some are already taking a dim view of Windows Vista, writes Brian Boyd
Children and teenagers are going to loathe Windows Vista, the new operating system from Microsoft which goes on sale in Ireland today. Microsoft has spent more than $20 billion (€15 billion) in research and development over the past five years refining their successor to the current XP system.
The three key new details of Vista are security, security and security.
This is in response to the amount of viruses and spyware out there which are currently playing havoc with computers worldwide and parental concerns about what children are viewing over the internet.
Consumer feedback has informed a lot of the changes in Vista, and the two big issues here were concerns about the type of sites that children were able to access - in particular pornographic and gambling sites as well as those which contained graphic violent imagery. There was also concern about the amount of time children were spending on social networking sites such as Bebo and MySpace.
To this end, Vista comes with a powerful new tool called User Account Control. What this means is that a parent can set up Vista so that secondary users (eg children) are simply unable to access sites which are deemed to be inappropriate without having administrative rights (typically an administrator name and a password) to the computer.
In essence, this means that a child will have to ask a parent for permission to view inappropriate sites.
There was a similar function with the XP system, but it was cumbersome and overly-restrictive, blocking even the most basic of operations. The other development is that Vista has a function that means a parent can impose time limits on computer use by setting it to run for only so many minutes/hours. Thus you have the prospect of access to the computer being run on a reward/punishment schedule. Bundled up with all of this are features that will also tell you how much time secondary users have spent on the computer, what applications they have used, what sites they have visited and even information about what sites they have attempted but failed to access.
Other security measures have been considerably beefed up also. Vista's BitLocker Drive Encryption ensures that if you lose/misplace your computer, no one else will be able to access its contents. It is estimated that more than 10,000 laptop computers are left in London taxi cabs each year.
Previously - and if the correct settings hadn't been applied - the person who found the computer could access everything, but that has now changed.
Which is no doubt good news for all those British MI5 operatives who always seem to be misplacing their laptops. Vista also comes with an in-built anti-spyware product called Windows Defender which is always running in the background.
The new system sure looks a lot "cooler" than XP and uses an appealing new 3-D user interface called Windows Aero which is a "backronym" for "Authentic, Energetic, Reflective and Open". Well done to the Microserf who blue-skied that into existence.
Perhaps the most significant change for end-users is that Vista has added a Search box to the Start menu. This does away with the old-style cascading model, where if you wanted to find a particular application, you had to first click on to Programmes, then click on to Accessories etc. Also gone from Vista is the really annoying wagging dog from XP. There's a new file organisation system whereby Vista will automatically index almost everything on the computer.
The best way to describe how this works is by the "clothes on the floor" analogy. Imagine that if, when getting dressed, all your clothes were spread out on the floor in front of you and you just had to pick up what you wanted instead of opening drawers and cupboards for individual items. Scientific validation, if you like, that "hanging" your clothes on the floor is not such a bad thing after all.
For all its bells and whistles, though, there have already been complaints about the new operating system. The Apple computer company were very quick to point out that Vista's Aero interface was rather similar to the Apple Mac OS X operating system. And not everyone is thrilled that Digital Rights Management has been integrated into Vista - DRM is very unpopular with end-users as it causes all sorts of problems when you want to play music/videos that you have downloaded off the computer on other operating devices (car stereos etc). There is also consumer concern about the hardware specifications needed to run Vista. If you bought your computer after 2002 you should be able to run Vista on it; before that and it might well be problematic.
If you buy a new computer from this week onwards, it should come loaded with Vista. If you bought your computer after 2002 and are currently using the XP operating system, Microsoft doesn't envisage any problem in laying a Vista upgrade over your XP.
Five years of work and billions of dollars of money have gone into this. By the end of this week, we should have some idea if the technical reviewers find this Vista to be appalling or beautiful.
Windows Vista comes in six different editions which all go on sale today.
Prices vary depending on which version you require or if you just want to upgrade your present system to Vista. www.microsoft.com/ireland/windowsvista
