The Vista Zeitgeist

IanFogg | March 13, 2007, 06:42 AM

I've been struck by the amount of anti-Vista rhetoric around, which for the most part is at complete odds with my experiences with Vista to date.

I think one issue is that Vista simply isn't a good fit with the mood of the times. Perhaps in part because of the long lag between goals being set/development starting and with the much later date Vista was released.

The new design for the Start menu provides a great example. For the most part, the new design is good. With XP, I always reverted to the 'Classic' layout in preference to its new look, but with Vista I've chosen to keep the standard Vista menu layout on my PC as I prefer it.

However, the way 'shut down' works in Vista is so completely against the energy saving, low carbon, mood of the times (at least in Europe) I'm astounded Microsoft has shipped Vista this way. I can only put it down to a bit of a version 1.0 thing with the completely re-worked interface.

Examples of the Zeitgeist: Today BT, the incumbent telco, press released ways for small businesses to lower their carbon footprint. Australia has announced it will be banning tungsten light bulbs in favour of low energy lighting; the UK and Europe are talking about following suit. Yesterday Al Gore launched, 'Current TV' in the UK, and was persistently quizzed about his climate change movie in interviews. Both major UK politcal parties are falling over themselves to make policy announcements about climate change...

Back to Vista: The main 'off' button on the menu actually activates a 'sleep' mode which continues to use a significant amount of power (and on my PC the main fan keeps going too, which according to the Microsoft site it shouldn't). The real shut down is now hidden off a side menu that I suspect many novice users will not find.

I understand the benefits of 'sleep'. But most of those benefits also apply to the much lower power usage 'hibernate' mode. Microsoft has simply made the wrong choice here. It doesn't match today's zeitgeist. Microsoft needs to be proactive in rectifying the behavior or the company's critics will have another brick to throw.