A Work List for Windows Vista

The new interface(s): Aero Glass or not, Vista won't look too familiar to Windows veterans -- but Mac users may feel at home. As in Mac OS X, every file-browsing window in Vista has a search box at the top-right corner, a list of important folders at the left and a toolbar at the top.

That file search operates off an index that Vista compiles in the background; in Beta 2, however, it took more time to catch up on changes than either OS X's Spotlight or Google Desktop -- and was dismally slower at full-disk searches.

People familiar with OS X's Dashboard or Google Desktop's "widgets" will also recognize Vista's optional Sidebar, which floats at the right edge of the screen for quick access to such "gadgets" as a clock, a notepad and a calculator.

The Start Menu gets a welcome revision in Vista. Instead of an "All Programs" listing that blocks the entire screen with a seemingly endless tree of branching sub-menus, its list of programs is confined to the left two-thirds of the Start Menu. A search box lets you find programs quickly.

Aero Glass provides extra, sometimes entrancing, visual effects. Windows shimmer into place, their borders appear translucent, and mousing over taskbar buttons or hitting the Alt and Tab keys brings up thumbnail previews of each open window.

Throughout Vista, traditional text menus are hidden (the Alt key reveals them). Instead, toolbar buttons atop each window both execute commands and reveal drop-down menus of their own. That's a big, potentially upsetting shift-- a gutsy move for Microsoft.

On the other hand, will the final release of Vista still reveal parts that appear unchanged from Win 95 or 98 (for example, the Options screen in Windows Mail, a souped-up version of Outlook Express)?

Maintenance: Over time, the ugliest aspect of Windows can be its care and feeding; the phrase "soul-numbing tedium" comes to mind when contemplating such tasks as regulating what software runs at start-up.

Will Vista make sufficient progress on this front? Beta 2 leaves that question open.

Its Control Panel screen provides a clearer, searchable view of system settings. Its hierarchy of folders on the hard drive is simpler, with just three folders at the top (Windows, Program Files and Users) and only one folder in each user's directory for such program data files as Web bookmarks and e-mail archives (too bad it's still invisible).

But debugging a balky driver dumps you into the same old Device Manager interface. The Task Manager still offers nearly no help in identifying all the software active on your machine. And the system registry and the Registry Editor look as horrifyingly awful as ever.

Between now and January -- or whenever Vista arrives -- those issues could get better or linger unfixed. Unfortunately, six months go by fast when it comes to operating-system development. You have to hope that Microsoft makes the most of that time or postpones Vista if necessary. If not, who knows how long the next one will take?

Living with technology, or trying to? E-mail Rob Pegoraro atrob@twp.com.