Jan 29, 2007

Breaking News! The "Wow" Starts Now!

Windows Vista has been launched today to customers... The new Microsoft Operating system comes in 4 editions (Home Basic, Home Premium, Business, Ultimate). From the first logon page, moving the mouse, touching the keyboard and entering your user name and password you'll know it's a whole new experience. Since of course I had the opportunity to install and test Vista as a WinSE dev, allow me to take print screens from my experience and talk about new features of the OS.
The first thing you'll notice is a fresh new user interface; All applications and windows are surrounded by glass, which gives you a sense of depth, while you can use a window/application you still can see behind it. Also switching between applications has been improved, in fact if you just hover with your mouse on any of the taskbar minimized windows, you'll get live previews of the applications including motion video.
Flip 3D. It's a new and very cool feature which allows you to switch between applications in a 3D space, allowing you to scroll throw them with the arrow keys, or quickly with the mouse.

A new feature is the Sidebar. The side bar is a new feature which allows you to show or run small applications (Gadgets) to do a specific task for you. For example I have the prayer times, a slide show of my pictures, my processor and memory stats, weather and calendar. Other gadgets may allow you to view RSS feeds from your favorite websites and others play your local FM channel. If you want more information from a gadget, you can drag it to your desktop and that way it will expand showing you more information.
A new innovation is the new windows slide show, it’s some kind of a LCD or a device attached to your laptop, allowing you to show gadgets as the calendar, your upcoming appointments and/or your contacts without even turning on your PC. That's what you should expect from the new Windows OS.


Information when you need it; search is now on your finger tips, open start menu and start typing the name of the document or the application or part of the content of the document and automatically files and application matching your search criteria will be displayed.

IE Tabs allows you to view all tabs and the ability to choose and close which ever you don't like.

Windows photo gallery is now easier with features like fix (color, brightness, red-eye... etc.). The more amazing about the photo gallery is that you always have a saved original backup of the image no matter how many times you edited it, so from now on feel confident to edit and try to change whatever you want; you always can go back and remove everything even after years! Another feature in the photo gallery is the ability to play both image and video files, so whenever you preview your album, you don't need to close the photo viewer and run the Media player to run the videos, It's all in one now!

Windows Vista is full of new and cool features. It's simpler, more secure and more user friendly.
To know more about features in Vista go to:

25 comments:

Ali Abdin said...

Wow...you just made my post about the Wow suck in comparison to yours...I wrote mine before I read this, and now I wish I just linked to you instead!

Nice pictures too :P Mine is just boring text!!! Anyway two things:
1 - Can you somehow make it so that if you click on the pictures it takes you to a larger version (perhaps create a flickr account and upload pics there?)

2 - You forgot to mention that the "Wow" includes Office 2007!!! Vista + Office 2007 are the killer combo :)

I'm still upset we missed the launch/release at the cafe! Hany made us leave cuz it was too crowded!

Mohammed said...

WOW...Great Stuff Hany...You are doing good work here ;)

Viva Microsoft...Microsoft Rocks.
I wanna try 'em now :(

Your post is not that bad ali ;)

Mohamed Moshrif said...

I called him yesterday to go to the party at the best buy, he said no too :D

Very boring person :P

Hany Barakat said...

@Ali - I'll try to go with advice, hopefully I'll do so soon... The launch release! Are you kidding! You just wanted to go coz u thought we were going to win something! And it was really crowded, between every 2 people 2 others! And I didn’t read your post yet, but I’m sure it doesn’t suck that much :-P

Hany Barakat said...

@Moe, Glad you liked it, it’s really an amazing user experience... Thx for stopping by too!

Hany Barakat said...

@Meshref - Me boring! :-) I preferred not to go to Best Buy to watch the Vista launch; this way I'll be able to stay at home and enjoy using it ;-)

Ramy Mahrous said...

yeaaa, It's very nice, My Story with Vista from 2003 or 2004 when it was called "Longhorn" its code name it was violet, really great work MS (Y)
but I need its serial to activate it :D:D, ta7'od kam wy tdyny el serial :D ?

Hany Barakat said...

@Ramy - Indeed a gr8 work by MS. Of course, u need a serial to activate it online, but it really worth it; how many times do you buy an OS?! How good is it compared to Vista? Will there be support, service packs, hot fixes published for your own safety and installed to you automatically?

w b7'sos el serial, :-) ana ragel est3'laly w el 7ayah foras! ana fe 3amlya zy de ma7'odshy 22al mn 3esheeen gneeh!

Ali Abdin said...

Hany, I'm sure if I got a balloon I would've won something!!! We're bound to win someday (Hany and I's main goal at Microsoft is to win a prize in an internal competition/raffle/etc.)

And by the way - Longhorn is coming back :P Expect to see Longhorn Server at the end of the year (It's the server version of Vista basically - i.e. the upgrade for W2k and W2k3)

Hany Barakat said...

@Ali - u think we r going to win something with Longhorn! I just wish we 'd be still working for MS! (Just kidding)

Ali Abdin said...

Hany - eventually they're gonna find out all we do all day is play foosball!!! We'll be lucky to last until the end of the year :P

--_-- said...

Win Vista gives me the sense of Mac OSX Tiger(10.4)!

الحصان الأسود said...

Really WwooowW

Thank you Hany for these uselful information, and shring us with the knowledge of the windows Vista

Best Regards.

Mohamed Moshrif said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Mohamed Moshrif said...

Myra,

Mac OS 10.4 was released in 2005, and I had the beta of vista since early 2003, and Vista was supposed to be released before Tiger, and it was having the same currect UI.

Hany Barakat said...

Plus, Vista have way more features than the Mac OS (I like the way MAC OS looks)but it's not all about looks... For example one feature that was added in XP and now enhanced in Vista is the error report being sent to MS to figure out a solution, now in Vista you have a list of all errors u have encountered while using the Windows (Which really most of these problems are third party and Non-Microsoft drivers) and you can right click on any of the problems and check with MS online if there is a solution that has been found for the problem (Even third party problems). MS sends the info to whoever company caused the problem, gets the solution and publish it on MS website! Isn't that just gr8? Solving your bugs with just a sending your problem and checking it after a while! I Love MS!

--_-- said...

Meshref and Hany, thanks guys for the enrichment info., and Hany about the Error reports being sent to MS and having feed backs upon them, in Mac OSX there's a similar action, when you can get the feed back from Apple's website. Anyways i'll setup Vista soon as you really encouraging me to.
:)

Ali Abdin said...

Well, some of my favorite features...
1- Instant search in the start menu
2- Transparency in the Windows - it just looks sexy (AFAIK the actual window decorations in OSX are not transparent - I could be wrong)
3- Dreamscene! I have a beta installed, and I showed it to Hany :) We can set a moving background as our desktop background ;) I set mine to a rollercoaster and Hany got very dizzy and wanted to throw up :P (just kidding)

Ramy Mahrous said...

You forgot most beautiful feature is "Automatic Help", really I show my woow :D when I touched it since RC1 I wrote about it in my blog too
view

Ali Abdin said...

I also forgot about per-application sound settings!!!!

This is fantastic - now I can have music playing softly in the background while having the rest of my sounds turned up :)

Bahaa said...

An interesting overview of the WoWs, well done Hany and thank you.

Hany Barakat said...

Thx Bahaa for stoping by... And thx for ur comment. Glad u liked the Vista.

Mohammed said...

Thanks Meshref for "The Mac OS 10.4 Vs. Vista", i have been trhough a fight yesterday arguing with ppl who have the same claim!!

The bad thing is, although they haven't tried (maybe seen) Vista yet...they started yelling "Vista is nothing but Microsoft's version of Max OS X"!!!

Mohamed Moshrif said...

Actually I doubt they have tried Mac OS X as well :D

Ramy Mahrous said...

ektb post gdyda :D