Hey, I heard they added ZOOMING to their paintbrush application provided with Windows. About bloody time one of those accessories got upgraded in a noticably useful way. Perhaps they'll update the output filter DLLs for GIF/JPEG/PNG so when color reduction occurs, the image isn't destroyed (you KNOW what i'm talking about) in the process.
So, Vista is this:
Eye candy for solitare/minesweeper, 3D chess and shanghai solitare, new game for children, parental controls, new underlying APIs that will probably only be partially open (basing that on the fact Microsoft seems to be refusing to release specs for DirectUser), new IPv6 stack, IE7 (i've read up [on Microsoft's site] on the protection mechanisms at play in "protected mode", and hopefully this *is* all it's hyped up to be, so users don't get a new system just to get bogged down in malware again), New window drawing engine (Window color can be changed finally for the theme, a welcome addition), Media Center for home premium (I know, it debuted in XP, and I happen to have bought a machine back in 2004 with it), better protection of users by making it harder to hose their systems, RSS API, the ability to use key-drives as RAM (aka SuperFetch), support for raw camera data, updated start menu, something that will supposedly install lightning-fast, built-in spyware detector, scalable icons, a photo gallery utility?, calender program, "windows transfer", WMP11 (I somehow get the feeling I won't be impressed... but i'm trying to keep an open mind), a renamed outlook express, "secure startup" for corporate users, Windows Updater application, firewall improvements. Did I miss anything?
Now if they would just support DOM better (I tried out the IE7 to see the enhancements the IE team had given it). Don't like the unnatural placement of the menu-bar in IE. Still doesn't seem to like DOM code that it should. Set class attribute to one with a CSS style defined, and what happened in IE7? Nothing. Works in Firefox. Not saying they haven't done squat in IE7 (they have, I occasionally read their blog), but i'm pretty sure web developers would appreciate the change (I may not be a big-shot web developer, but I would like to be able to do less work for compatibility e.g. I can specify attributes /w createElement() in IE7, but not Firefox atm, but firefox handles adding attributes correctly, and IE7 atm doesn't)