Blackmoor Vituperative

I hate to say it, but it sounds like Windows Vista may actually have some useful user-interface improvements. According to an article at eWeek, Windows Vista Takes Cues From Tiger, Microsoft has refined its user interface for Vista, in some cases doing something worthwhile in the process.

At the simplest level, “My Computer” and “My Documents” are being renamed “Computer” and “Documents”. Of course, most of us have been renaming these directories like that for years, but it’ll be nice to have one less modification to do when re-installing Windows. Vista will also provide file-preview icons up to 128×128 pixels. For those of us running high-resolution screens, that will be a nice addition. The improved search also sounds like it might be useful, although to be frank I doubt I’ll use it: it would have to be pretty darned impressive to be better than Google Desktop.

I will have to reserve judgement until I see how they implement so-called “Digital Rights Management” in Vista. If Big Brother is inside, I’ll pass, thank you. Still, at least it sounds like they’re doing something useful up in Redmond, instead of bloating up the next version of a Microsoft application with useless crap like they usually do. And it’s worth remembering that no matter how badly they screw it up, the user interface of Windows Vista will almost certainly be more powerful, flexible, and intuitive than that abomination known as the Apple Macintosh.

“Apple: making easy things difficult and complicated things impossible.”