Microsoft’s Windows Vista Shell team has listened. After many complaints about the black maximized border effect in Windows Vista’s AERO within many enthusiast communities, User Experience Fit & Finish manager Dave Vronay has responded to their feedback and has made a last minute decision to modify the effect.

He has also shared these screenshots of the new maximized window effect. I have had mixed feelings about the black border, and I still have mixed feelings about this, but I think it is certainly an improvement. I think the intention to create a seamless border with the monitor’s overscan black borders was all well and good, but after 10 years of using border-framed applications, having an application look so exposed can be weird.

Dave Vronay also posted a complete compilation of the color variations of bordered glass.

I had a chat with Microsoft’s Dave Vronay today to discuss the user experience in Windows Vista, most notably named “AERO”, commonly mistaken for “Aero”. It is important to note, using “Aero” to refer to the user experience in Vista could be a violation of their trademark, unless of course, you are referring to the candy bar. Both of which are candy at least, one’s for the eye and the other for the mouth. Which one goes where, is for you to decide.

Dave Vronay has many AERO responsibilities. He runs the UX compliance team, ensuring both internally and externally-developed applications follow their UX guidelines as much as possible. He also looks after the Fit & Finish SWAT team, who is responsible for the last minute UI fit & finish changes that we are undergoing today.

UX Guidelines

The UX Guidelines is a document which outlines general user experience practices when developing applications for Windows Vista. At the moment, this document is mostly incomplete, and contains many legacy material from the pre-Beta 2 era. Dave says we’ll see the complete and final version of the UX guideline around January when Vista will be released.

UX Compliance for Vista logo certification

How can guidelines be used? One thing Dave wants to see is some kind of guideline compliance certification, like the logo certification for Vista-ready applications. One would presume such compliance programs are aimed to increase consistency and the quality of user interface design in third-party softwares. This has never been done before by Microsoft, but not surprisingly Apple, where Dave formerly worked at, did implement user interface compliance.

The future

“In the future, we really need to think of Windows’ UI as a large content-centric project, like a game. And manage the visual quality the same way. After all, we have about the same number of assets as a game; thousands of icons, bitmaps, etc.” writes Dave. “When we introduce new features to the OS, we have to take a very long term view. For example, if we want to move people from folders to queries, we can’t do that in one release – we need a 12-year plan. First we keep everything as is but promote searching and tagging, then 3 years later we add some persistent queries, etc. Then after 8 years we make folders no longer the default. Remove them after 10 years but make it so you can turn them on with an option. And finally kill them in 2020. Otherwise users and corporations cannot absorb the change.”

You read it here first. WinFS was 14 years too early.

Change in Windows Vista

I asked about the possibility of visual style changes in Windows Vista. Dave responds with, “we have a really long lead-time with these visuals, because we have to trademark them etc. So these rumors you hear about us changing the pearl, etc. are just not possible.” What about Aero Diamond or Vector Glass? “At some point, when 95% of machines have a non-crap video card, we’ll have a vector UI.”

“Designing Windows is more like passing legislation than working on a normal piece of software. Every decision has hundreds of stakeholders, special interest groups, vested legacy, etc.”

And then some…

Dave jokes, “amazingly though, we do get support calls from people who are complaining about why some games doesn’t work. And it turns out that it doesn’t work because they bought a machine from a discount retailer that has some an alternative OS on it instead of Windows, and the customer didn’t notice. People in the blogosphere are not exactly mainstream in their technical ability. The average user has no desire to spend any time learning about their computer. Just like they don’t want to learn how their car works.”

What about Desktop Aurora?

I was surprised Dave could give me such a straight answer when everyone else avoids the question. “There are many implementations of the animated desktop around. When it ships and in what form depends mostly on application compatibility and performance testing.” So there you have it, it’s not just a rumor after all. Whether if we’ll see it by the time Vista launches is another question.

If you have a gripe with something in the Windows Vista user interface, then you can write about it on the shell:revealed forum where Dave Vronay hangs out. Almost every submission has been responded to by Microsoft employees, so your complaints or suggestions will definitely be heard.

The wonderful Dave Vronay from Microsoft’s UX team has submitted this great tip to me after constantly nagging him about Desktop Aurora. With a bit of persistence, it has finally paid off. With this practical yet simple method, you can emulate the look of Desktop Aurora without any system modifications or heavy impact on performance. However, it must also be said that this approach is very flawed, as it has several downsides that makes it impractical to use for extended periods of time. But who cares, you can only get so much of eye-candy anyway.

The concept is extremely simple. Run a screensaver on the desktop. But with the added power of DWM, you can get all the cool Glass effects on top of the screensaver, so it’s just like a real wallpaper. Screensavers has always supported the ability to be called to render on any surface to assist in development. But we can also utilize this method to create an interesting desktop background effect.

As you can see, the results can look stunning on a Glass-abundant application such as the “Gadgets Gallery” with some modifications to the original Vista screensavers.

How to do it

Automatic method

Blog reader Nate, has coded an application which automates the entire process. His application gives you an extremely easy way of selecting the screensaver desire, and makes it even possible to start the screensaver rendering on startup. You can download Nate’s application here.

Screencast

You can watch a screencast showing you the steps you need to take to achieve the same result.

Click to image to view video (H.264, 2:48min)

Manual method

Otherwise, if you feel confident, you can follow these steps below.

1. Boot into Windows Vista, obviously
2. Open the Spy++ tool, which is used to assist in software debugging. If you don’t have a copy, download it here.
3. Use the “Window Search” icon, which is the binoculars icon in the toolbar.
4. Drag the “Finder Tool” on to the desktop. The area surrounding the desktop should be bordered. Release mouse. Click “OK”.
5. An item called “Folder View” should now be highlighted in the main window. Go up 2 parent items, and find “Program Manager”.
6. There should be a bunch of characters on the left like “0002010C”, record this set of characters.
7. Open the Hex to Decimal converter (http://www.easycalculation.com/hex-converter.php)
8. Insert your set of characters into the “HEX value” box. Copy the resulting “Decimal” value. This is your “Handle ID”.
9. Open command prompt. Type in “[Vista Drive]:\Windows\System32\mystify.scr /p [Your Handle ID]”, you might end up with “D:\Windows\System32\mystify.scr /p 131340”. Click Enter.
10. Enjoy

To stop the desktop screensaver, simply launch Task Manager and find the screensaver process, then end the process.

You can also replace “mystify.scr” with any screensaver you desire. The Ribbons (ribbons.scr) works too. Aurora (aurora.scr) can be pretty bland. The Windows Energy (SSBranded.scr) can be quite intensive, but looks pretty cool. Bubbles (bubbles.scr) won’t work well.

Whilst the result is fancy for a few minutes, it becomes impractical because the desktop icons are overlapped by the screensaver rendering. But since DWM renders on top of the screensaver, you get all the fancy translucent effects with the screensaver.

I suspect the ‘real’ Desktop Aurora will use a better implementation of rendering, as well have a ‘quieter’ animation than screensavers to ensure it does not distract the user from more productive work, like Solitaire.

Just a little over a month ago, Microsoft partnered with Razer, who creates high-end computer gaming devices, to create the first Microsoft-branded gaming-oriented mouse, the Microsoft Habu. Which I should point out, isn’t a half-bad high-performance peripheral to gamers. With every mouse, comes a keyboard.

Microsoft Hardware and Razer plan to announce another co-branded next-generation gaming product soon. Stay tuned and game on! (Press release 23/08/06)

That product would be a gaming keyboard called the Reclusa. No information has been released about the plans for a gaming keyboard or the Reclusa as of yet, but I presume information will be revealed before the holiday season.

This information comes from the Trademarks Office as well as Microsoft itself. On the 31st of July 2006, Microsoft filed for a trademark on the “Reclusa” name to be associated with computer keyboards. This was only 11 days after filing the application for the “Habu” name to be associated with computer mice for computer games.

Microsoft’s own list of trademarks confirms this.

Currently, Razer only has one gaming keyboard product, the Tarantula. Apart from being a keyboard with pressable keys, it includes hardware-level game profiles support, keymapping, response-optimised keys, additional docking peripherals such as a light or webcam and many more. Besides taking and possibly enhancing all of those features, I can only assume some of the design and functionality for the Reclusa will be adapted from the Wireless Entertainment Desktop 8000 Vista keyboard.

I don’t know from which exotic Pacific island Microsoft is pulling these names from, but at least they have no conflicting trademarks.

Update: I have good insider information that the Reclusa will be shipping early next year.

One of the surprises as Jenny Lam, the creative lead on the MSX design team, has said about the launch of Windows Vista is the packaging. As we draw closer to the launch, things are starting to get exciting once again.

Today, I went on a wild search at the Trademarks Office for anything cool Vista related. Most of the time, trademarks for approval are submitted long before actual product launches or announcements (just ask the Apple insiders), so the Trademarks Office is a great resource to finding hidden gems. I stumbled across this submission for a trademark by Microsoft, and I thought it was interesting at least.

The application describes,

The mark consists of a configuration of a package for the goods comprising a generally rectangular shape with a rounded upper right corner when viewed from the front.

It is important to note that this application was filed in 5 May, 2006, so not exactly hot off the press. I’m also aware that Microsoft places many trademarks on many design items, so this could be one of those insignificant things that they’ve trademarked.

Having said that, I think this has more significance because it was only one of the few Vista icons registered. When compared with the “Windows box” icons that we’ve seen in Windows Vista for a while, it is almost identical, including the little tab on the side of the box to eject the DVD case.

Whether this is an overreaction or not, it can be quite certain that Microsoft will ship Windows Vista in a package other than the standard DVD case. The matter of the fact is, what will it look like? One more thing to make January a whole lot more exciting than it already is.

Update: Guess I was (mostly) right. The packaging has been officially released.

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