Vista RTM + 1 week
If you have read some of my previous posts around Vista, you know that it was one of few Microsoft products during this “wave” of products that I wasn’t getting excited about. In fact, I had so many issues with B2->RC1 builds that I stopped using it on my tablet back in September.
Well, I loaded RTM of Business on my tablet the day it RTM’d and it has been surprisingly pleasant. Why didn’t I load Ultimate? I wanted to experience corporate user experience, I loaded Ultimate on my MCE at home (Ultimate is fantastic BTW, but is starting to tax my old desktop machine). After some initial struggles with Toshiba drivers (Toshiba pulled their drivers from Windows Update to fix a couple things, should be posted again this week), I have been really happy.
Here are some of the tips and highlights and lowlights after one week of real usage:
· Install Vista, once complete go to Windows Update and get all new drivers/software. 3rd parties as well as Microsoft will be providing more and more drivers and software through Windows Update this time.
· I was able to join my computer to the domain over a VPN connection and get all required certs (IPSec, Smart card, etc). This was a huge problem with pre-RTM builds
· I never had to make my user account a local administrator (and still isn’t). This is huge for security guys out there.
· I like the Gadgets, specifically the weather, time and performance Gadgets.
· Performance has been outstanding
· The new display drivers accurately detect if I am using a second monitor now (neither Toshiba or Nvidia drivers ever did this correctly in Windows XP)
· Search is fantastic, all items on my HDD as well as Outlook are indexed and immediately available
· BIGGEST HIGHLIGHT: Life goes on. No major problems, but also no major revolutions. I can still find everything I need.
· BAD: I don’t like the implementation of the network GUI’s. It seems that to enable my wireless connection I have 2 more menus to navigate. This is great for new Windows users, but who really is a new Windows user these days. I am sure there is a better way to shortcut me to what I want, but I haven’t found it yet.
· BAD: When prompted for administrator credentials, I use the local administrator. Vista never helps me select that user like it did in pre-RTM builds. It assumes that I want to use domain user credentials or smart card. Which means that I have to type in a long machinename\localadmin credential. Security good, having to remember my machine name bad.
· REALLY BAD: Can’t figure out how to defrag a specific drive. It only has a “Defrag Now” button which won’t let you select a drive and doesn’t give you “percentage complete” feedback. I use a lot of external USB/Firewire drives and can’t wait for it to defrag on its own.
As I play with Vista more, and find shortcuts for some of my frustrations, I plan on posting them here as usability nuggets. If you find solutions or frustrations, please feel free to comment on them.
Update: Thanks to Tom Beerley for pointing out that the core defrag is still \windows\system32\defrag.exe which supports command line. Just make sure you run the command line as administrator. Below are the command line switches.
V:\Windows\system32>defrag
Windows Disk Defragmenter
Copyright (c) 2006 Microsoft Corp.
Description: Locates and consolidates fragmented files on local volumes to
improve system performance.
Syntax: defrag <volume> -a [-v]
defrag <volume> [{-r | -w}] [-f] [-v]
defrag -c [{-r | -w}] [-f] [-v]
Parameters:
Value Description
<volume> Specifies the drive letter or mount point path of the volume to
be defragmented or analyzed.
-c Defragments all volumes on this computer.
-a Performs fragmentation analysis only.
-r Performs partial defragmentation (default). Attempts to
consolidate only fragments smaller than 64 megabytes (MB).
-w Performs full defragmentation. Attempts to consolidate all file
fragments, regardless of their size.
-f Forces defragmentation of the volume when free space is low.
-v Specifies verbose mode. The defragmentation and analysis output
is more detailed.
-? Displays this help information.
Examples:
defrag d:
defrag d:\vol\mountpoint -w -f
defrag d: -a -v
defrag -c -v
Comments
Anonymous
January 01, 2003
Thanks Chris, I quickly found that as well. I guess in one regard I am upset that the behavior changed between post-RC1 and RTM, but in thinking about it I guess there could be a security vulnerability there if it "cached" you last admin logon even if it just the name and not the password. Just one of those thungs I need to accept and move on.Anonymous
November 22, 2006
Instead of machinenameaccountname you can do .accountname