Windows Vista Build 5536 Review

Today I’d like to refer a comment by Paul Thurrott on the coming operation system Windows Vista Build 5536.Also I would refer the translation from www.appbeta.com, so both English speakers and Chinese speakers can share this with me.

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And just like that, we can suddenly see the light at the end of the tunnel. All of our hopes, all of our worries, all of whatever feelings we may have for Windows Vista are hanging on the edge of a precipice. Will they ship it on time? Will they ever ship it? Does it even matter?

Increasingly, the actual ship date for Windows Vista does not matter, but not for the reasons you may suspect. Microsoft will ship Windows Vista exactly when they want to, according to the schedule they previously laid out. They’re not delaying it any further, and after releasing the product to manufacturing in late October 2006, businesses can expect to get it via volume licensing in November, followed by consumers and general availability in late January 2007.

Before any of that can happen, however, we have a final milestone to cross. It’s called Release Candidate 1 (RC1) and I expect to be writing a lengthy review of that build–currently slated as build 5552, though of course these things change regularly on an ongoing basis–sometime in about two weeks. For now, however, we have the next best thing, a pre-RC1 interim build, 5536, that offers a peak at many of the best changes Microsoft has made to Windows Vista since the lackluster Beta 2 build.

Windows Vista build 5536, by contrast, is a humdinger.

I’ve been like a bipolar pit bull when it comes to Windows Vista lately. Some builds have been fantastic (at least compared to what came previously). Some have been positively embarrassingly bad. I just spent the past three weeks in France with two Windows Vista-based notebooks and it was like being imprisoned with vipers in the dark: I never knew when I was going to be bit. Windows Vista build 5472, the previous milestone testers received, was, shall we say, performance challenged. There were weird issues deleting desktop files. There was a Recent Items entry in the Start Menu that, curiously, did not actually contain recently accessed items. It was, in short, a bit disappointing.

Windows Vista build 5536, again, is a humdinger.

What’s new in build 5536?

So what’s new in 5536, you ask? Performance is better, even much better. (Though the three times performance improvement baloney you might have read elsewhere is not only impossible but untrue.) It does a much better job of finding and correctly installing device drivers: On my main desktop, even the sound driver worked automatically after the first Windows Update run, a first.

Microsoft’s fledgling Windows Live services have been integrated, annoyingly, into the system. On the good news front, this "integration" isn’t as technically silly as what the company did earlier with such components as Internet Explorer and Windows Messenger. But it is equally annoying.

Instead of installing various Windows Live components by default–which would have been a bad move, not just for antitrust reasons, but because of their constantly updating nature–Microsoft is including numerous shortcuts to various Windows Live services throughout the system. In Welcome Center, for example, there is a new "Offers from Microsoft" section that includes no fewer than seven icons for Microsoft services, five of which are Windows Live services: "Go online to learn about Windows Live," "Download Windows Live Toolbar," "Sign up for Windows Live OneCare" (which, naturally, doesn’t work during the beta anyway), "Go online to Windows Marketplace," "Download Windows Live Mail Desktop," "Download Windows Live Messenger," and "Sign up online for technical support."

Additionally, there is an item called "Windows Live Messenger Download" right in the default Start Menu. As expected, clicking this item launches Internet Explorer, which navigates to the Windows Live Messenger download page online. Unexpectedly, once you download and install Windows Live Messenger, the "Windows Live Messenger Download" link remains in your Start Menu. Silly.

And speaking of Internet Explorer, the most annoying aspect of the Windows Live integration in Vista occurs in everyone’s favorite new Web browser: My default, IE 7 launches with two home pages, one in each tab. The first and topmost home page is MSN.com, just like before. But the secondary page displays the Windows Live Search site. Big deal, right? The problem is that by opening two tabs at startup, Microsoft is ensuring that most users–i.e. "normal people"–will see an annoying "Do you want to close all tabs?" alert dialog every time they close IE. That’s just wrong.

(This isn’t really notable per se, but IE’s About dialog still uses the "Internet Explorer 7+" naming that Microsoft says it is dropping.)

User Account Control (UAC) has been dramatically improved and let me be among the first to throw out a hearty "thank you" to the UAC team for that. Now, instead of the stunningly annoying "pop" that used to occur every time one of the UAC alert dialogs appeared, the transition is smooth and there is a soft, almost enjoyable, beep sound. This is literally the first time I didn’t reach for the "remove UAC" option after installing a recent Vista build. Bravo.

Special shell folders like Documents, Pictures, Favorites, and Music (but not, curiously, the still second rate Videos) are now color coded in greenish blue to differentiate them from other folders (which are still yellowish). Saved searches are also differentiated, using a soft blue color.

Windows Update now prompts you to install Microsoft Update so that you can get updates for other Microsoft products, like Microsoft Office, directly through Windows Update. If you click on this link, you’re brought to a Web page, which you have to click a single OK box, and then you’re done. Simple.

There’s a new shortcut to the Program Compatibility Wizard on the desktop, so you can try and make Vista-unaware applications work properly. Microsoft warns, however, that you should not use this wizard-based application with older virus detection, backup, or system programs. The problem is, many users won’t understand what that means. What, exactly, is a "system" program?

Windows Media Center shows, perhaps, the biggest performance improvement of any Vista component. The application almost pops to life and, using the "Express" setup option, can be in use almost immediately. I won’t be trying to put Media Center on my family’s Media Center PC again until RC1 hits, but it’s clear that something wonderful has happened here.

In the Personalize section of Control Panel, there are a number of major improvements. First, when you right-click the desktop, you’ll see that the Personalize option has a new icon next to it, making it more prominent and obvious. In Windows Color and Appearance, the default color schemes now have simple color names (Default, Graphite, Blue, Teal, Red, Orange, Pink, and, my favorite, Frost). In Desktop Background, all of the background types (Black and White, Light Auras, etc.) are together in a single list; you no longer have to choose between each type.

As I had hoped, Microsoft augmented the Windows Aero mouse pointer with large and extra large variants. Now if they could just ship black versions too, it would be perfect.

The "shield" icon you see in the system tray for Windows Security Alerts can now be colored yellow or red, depending on the level of warning it’s trying to communicate. For example, the lack of virus protection now rates a yellow warning, and not the more risky red alert.

There’s probably more, but I don’t want to take away too much from my upcoming RC1 review, and to be fair, I’ve only been working with the build since last night. (Too, I just spent an entire day traveling back from France, so I hope it’s understandable that this is necessarily short.)

Conclusions

There’s no doubt about it: Windows Vista has taken too long to ship, and the first major milestone that Microsoft shipped to the public, Beta 2, was a disappointment. Since then, the company has shipped three promising interim builds to testers. The latest one, build 5536, an RC1 escrow build, is simply wonderful. If this build represents the quality, performance, and functionality that users can expect to see in RC1 and the final release, then Microsoft will have gone a long way towards making up for its mistakes and miscalculations. My only question is why we had to wait so long to see a build this good. If you can get your hands on 5536, enjoy it. If not, RC1 will be publicly available. Either way, you likely won’t be disappointed.

–Paul Thurrott
August 25-26, 2006

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我们突然看到了隧道尽头的光亮。我们所有的希望，所有的担心，以及无论你对于Windows Vista可能持有的所有情感都走到了悬崖的边缘。它们会按时发布吗？它们究竟愿意发布吗？这重要吗？

慢慢地，Windows Vista实际的发布日期不再重要了，不是因为你可能怀疑的原因。根据之前的计划安排，微软将会在它们想要发布的时候发布。它们不会再延期了，在2006年10月产品交付生产之后，企业有望在11月份通过批量授权协议获取，接着在2007年1月消费版也会发阿布。

不过，在此之前，我们还有一个最终的里程碑要经历。这就是RC1，我想写一个长长的RC1的评论，现在的版本是build 5552，当然，这个版本号还会变化，毕竟还有约2周时间。现在，我们有了一个pre-RC1的过渡版本：build 536，这个版本将Windows Vista的变化自Beta 2以来推到了顶峰。

相比较而言，Windows Vista build 5536极其出色。

Paul对最近的Windows Vista有些失望，尽管Windows Vista build 5472在性能上有了很大提升，但是有些版本甚至有一些很荒谬的错误，比如删除桌面文件的问题、开始菜单中最近使用项目的问题等。总之，有点失望。

但是，Windows Vista build 5536的确是极其出色的版本。

Build 5536有什么更新呢？

首先，性能高更好，的确是好多了。你可能看到有人说是三倍的性能改进，这不是真的。但是，它的确在查找和正确安装设备驱动方面做得更好了：在我的主桌面上，甚至声卡驱动在首次Windows Update运行后就能工作了。这是首次。

微软年轻的Windows Live服务已经被整合进系统了，很令人厌烦。好的方面是，这个整合不是像微软以前整合IE和Windows Messenger那样技术上看来愚蠢的做法。但是，这也让人觉得讨厌。

在默认情况下，Windows Live 组件并未安装，这应该是糟糕的一步，不仅仅是因为反托拉斯法，而是因为它们的频繁更新的本性——微软正在将大量的Windows Live服务的快捷方式添加到系统中。例如，在Welcome Center中就有"Offers from Microsoft"区块，它包含了7格微软的服务图标及其链接，其中的5格都是Windows Live服务："Go online to learn about Windows Live," "Download Windows Live Toolbar," "Sign up for Windows Live OneCare", "Go online to Windows Marketplace," "Download Windows Live Mail Desktop," "Download Windows Live Messenger," 和"Sign up online for technical support."

另外，默认的开始菜单中还有一项叫"Windows Live Messenger Download"。毋庸置疑，单击它就会夹在IE，然后导向Windows Live Messenger的下载页面。想不到的是，一旦你下载并安装了Windows Live Messenger，开始菜单中的这一项链接还会待在那里，无聊。

说到IE，就想起Windows Live最讨厌的一个方面，它出现在每个人喜爱的新浏览器中：我的默认的，IE7有两个主页，每个一个标签。第一个也是最上面的一个是MSN.com，跟以前一样。而第一个显示的就是Windows Live Search网站。问题是在启动时通过打开两个标签，微软在确保多数用户——如常人——再每次关闭IE时将能够看到烦人的“Do you want to close all tabs?”（你想关闭所有标签吗？）警告对话框。那是个错误。

UAC（用户帐号控制）已经显著被改进，我首次给UAC开发组一句由衷的“谢谢你们”。现在，每次UAC出现时足以让人晕倒的弹出提示终于被替代了，转变过程是平滑而温和的，几乎就是令人愉悦的、beep声。这也是我首次没有在安装Vista之后就移除UAC。不错！

特殊的文件夹，如Documents, Pictures, Favorites和Music都以呈绿的蓝色表示，以区别于其他的文件夹（呈黄色）。保存搜索文件夹也不同，使用了浅蓝色。

Windows Update现在会提示你安装Microsoft Update，以便你可以获得微软其他产品的更新，如Office，可以直接通过Windows Update。如果你单击这个链接，就会被带到网页，在那里你必须单击只有一个OK的框，然后就可以了。简单！

桌面上多了一个新图标：Program Compatibility Wizard（程序兼容向导），所以你可以尝试并让不是为Vista设计的程序正常运行。但是，微软警告说你不应该对老的病毒探测程序、备份或系统程序使用该向导。问题是，许多用户不会理解这是什么意思，什么是系统程序？

或许，Windows Media Center表明它是所有Vista组件中改进最大的部分。这个程序使用"Express"设置就可以立即投入使用。我不会尝试将其放到我的家庭娱乐中心PC上，直到RC1发布，但是很清楚的是一些奇妙的事情已经发生了。

控制面板中的Personalize（个人）设置部分，由许多主要改进。首先，当你右击桌面，你将会看到Personalize选项由一个新图标，这让它更加突出和明显。在Windows Color and Appearance中，默认的色彩方案现在有了简单的色彩名称（Default, Graphite, Blue, Teal, Red, Orange, Pink, my favorite, Frost）。在桌面背景中，所有背景类型（Black and White, Light Auras等等）都被集中到一个列表中；你不在必须在每个类型中选择了。有了一个新的屏幕保护程序：Bubbles，相当漂亮。（Paul是不是记错了或者相对于更早的Build版本？之前的几个Beta 2都有这个程序）。

如我所愿，微软扩大了Windows Aero鼠标指针。现在，如果它们也能够发布黑色版本将会更好。

在系统任务栏中Windows Security Alerts的盾形图标现在被用以黄色或红色，这依赖于它尝试通讯的警告等级。例如，缺少病毒探测时会发出黄色警告，更加危险时就是红色警报了。

还可能有更多，但是我不想从我即将到来的RC1评论拿走太多内容。坦白的说，我只是将从昨天晚上开始看到的内容写出来。我刚花了一整天从法国旅行回来，所以我希望这可以被理解。

总结

毫无疑问的是：Windws Vista在发布上已经花了太长的时间，微软公开发布的首个主要里程碑式的Beta 2令人失望。从那时起，微软又给测试人员发布了三个有前途过渡版本。最新的一个就是build 5536，它是RC1的escrow版本，相当不错。如果这个版本表现了用户可以期待在RC1中和最终版中看到的质量、性能和功能的话，微软还有很长的路要走，以弥补它的过错。我唯一的问题就是我们为什么要等这么久才能看到这么好的版本呢。如果你可以获得5536，享受它吧。如果不能，就等待RC1的公开发布吧。不管如何，可能都不会令你失望。

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