Everyone’s excited about the midnight release of Vista. It will be interesting to see if there are lines forming to be the first to pick up a copy. (My guess: not many lines, and not very long ones, at that.) While I’m waiting for my Express Upgrade copy to arrive, here’s my list of things I really hope to find in Vista…

1. Networking that works. Microsoft has figured out how to get Active Directory to function reasonably well as an enterprise directory. What we haven’t seen is a way to make the Windows Peer networking work nearly as well or as consistently. I field lots of calls asking why a laptop suddenly can’t see a desktop, or why the corporate laptop is now unable to work with the nework printer at home. Home users shouldn’t have to worry about which machine has been elected Master Browser, and any networking fix that involves invoking Regedit is a non-starter. If Microsoft delivers consumer-grade networking that functions reliably, then Vista has gone a long way towards becoming a Win.
2. Improved Resource Management. I’ve moved to Office 2007. While there are features that will help me in many ways, in Windows XP the Office package is a serious resource hog. My laptop has a Core2  Duo CPU and 2 GB RAM, and it still slows to a crawl when I’m working with more than one application open. Outlook 2007, for all its improvements, is the worst offender. I hear from colleagues that Offie 2007 is much better under Vista, and I’m certainly hoping that’s true.
3. Usable Security. Let’s all agree that Windows XP hasn’t been as easy to make secure as we’d like. For at least three years we’ve been hearing that Vista will be dramatically better for a host of reasons. Unfortunately, recent reports have indicated that much of the security has followed the model of the TSA–convince people that if the security is truly annoying and disruptive, it must be working well. I don’t buy that premise, and I don’t want a security show. I want security that protects against things that might make it through my firewalls, and I want it to be sufficiently non-intrusive that I won’t be tempted to turn it off. That’s not an impossible list of “wants” for security.
4. Recognition of the Way I Work. OK, so I’m willing to admit that I’m probably not Captain Average when it comes to the stuff I do with a computer. On the other hand, I’m no longer writing custom apps to tailor the computer to each quirk and tic of my day. So I want to keep ActiveSynch, OneNote, and Groove all humming merrily along in the background while Google Desktop does its think on the side of the monitor. While this is going on I want Trillian waiting for instant messages from multiple sources and Skype to stand ready to complete my video phone calls. Oh, yes, Outlook should be handling my e-mail and scheduling stuff. And then, I want to get some work done with Word, or Excel, or maybe Adobe Audition. Is this so much to ask? It’s the way we were all led to believe computing would be. Of course, we were led to believe we would be computing like this while we wore our white or gray suits on the way to vacation at L5 (a trip we’d take in the PanAm Space Shuttle), but enough about that. The point is, I want Vista to keep the apps from bumping into each other. Now, working on my computer feels like what I imagine it must be to drive the truck taking a rabid rhino to the vet: we trundle resolutely down the road, but I can feel the angry bumps and thwacks from the cargo box, and I just know I’m going to end up in a ditch with an angry rhinocerous doing a tango on my spleen. I want Vista to take just a little of that particular thrill out of my workday.
5. I want Vista not to disappoint me. This one is hard, but I would like for the product to work as Microsoft has said it will work. I can’t ask it to make me happy, cure my halitosis, or bring back my hair, but I’d really be quite grateful if it didn’t cause the veins to throb on my temples or any more of my Linux-using friends to cluck their tongues in vague disappointment at my obvious stupidity. That last one is really beyond Vista’s abilities–the tongue-clucking will continue as long as I insist on the apostasy of a graphical user interface, but the rest would be nice. Really.

Categories: General computing, Enterprise, Consumer, Software