For at least the last 3 years, Intel has kept the same old ugly control panel interface for its integrated graphics card drivers. Being an OEM, naturally the software interface does not utilize the operating system’s UI controls, instead replaced by a branded interface that looks extremely repulsive to use. Open suggestion to Intel, if you’re going to skin an application, at least do it right.

I mean it took me just a little over an hour of effort to transform your repulsive interface into something I find a little more pleasing without touching any of your branding elements. I’m sure you paid someone a good deal amount of money to do it. Money well wasted.

Original Intel graphics control panel UI

Conceptual Intel graphics control panel UI

What do you guys think?

I’m really really really sorry Jesper, but when every 5th topic at the Neowin forums is a rant about Vista’s User Account Control (UAC), I must spread the word.

I, and I’m sure many beta testers as well, understand the reasons behind UAC and find it a little but not inefficiently obstructive. However, a group of people out there just can’t withstand UAC and might even cut off their arms and legs in protest. So in the prevention of lost limbs when Windows Vista launches, I have produced a quick 28-second video showing how stupidly easy it is to turn off UAC and its associated prompts. Please note, after you’ve disabled UAC, the shield icons will remain, but Windows Security will not prompt you to elevate your permission.

Click image to play video (H.264, 28secs)

For your convenience, if you do not have or like Quicktime installed, you can watch the low-quality YouTube version to get an idea.

The sad fact is Windows Vista will be shipping with screensavers without the options to be configured, however they were originally designed to be customizable. Stephen Coy, the designer of these screensavers, tells me this feature might be available after Vista ships, perhaps in the form of a powertoy or service pack? But if you can’t wait, then you can follow the steps below to customize the screensavers through the registry.

The registry keys that control the screensavers are located under
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Screensavers\

To apply these registry hacks, you should right click the links and “Save as…” the registry files onto your computer. Then double click on them to apply the changes.

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Note: He is NOT a baby working at Microsoft. He says the baby picture is all he could find. What he looks like now is anyone’s guess.

I have very fond memories of Windows screensavers. One day, I would be sitting in the cockpit of a spaceship traveling through the stars of a very pixellated universe, the next day, I’m a plumber building the internet using a series of tubes. Today, in an energy conscious world, our monitors turn off the moment we stop moving the mouse. But another era of energy-wasting and screen-destroying screensavers is upon us. I got in touch with Stephen Coy, the mastermind behind nearly all of the screensavers in Windows Vista (except for “Windows Energy” which was made by an external design firm) to ask about his career and Windows Vista.

Getting in touch with Stephen Coy was a challenge in itself really. I found his name embedded in some hidden resources inside the screensaver files. Through some intensive Googling, the best I could come up with was he worked at Microsoft in the late 90’s. Through the help of some good friends, I got an email address. I could have never guessed there were two Stephen Coy’s at Microsoft. To make things even tougher, I naturally reached the wrong Stephen, but at least he knew who to forward the email to. In the end, (this) Stephen Coy wrote, “Getting each other’s email has become kind of traditional.” I can’t help think what type of personal emails they get mis-sent too. 😛

My commentary are surrounded with [square brackets] in italics.

The opinions expressed by Stephen Coy herein are his own personal opinions and do not represent his employer’s views in any way. So please don’t sue Microsoft, they have enough lawsuits already.

(Robert Scoble style) Who are you?

I’m Stephen Coy and I’m a dev working on Vista in the UI Strategy team. Well anyway, development is my job but I don’t know if I’m quite happy with that being the definition of who I am [Yeah you show ’em who you are!]. I love computer graphics and have been actively involved in graphics for the last 18 or so years. I think spheres are perfect and they are an endlessly fascinating source of fodder for abstract renderings (check out http://www.infiniteinstant.com/images.html). I enjoy red wine, IPAs and Belgian ales and I eat food, too. [Food….mmmmm.]

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Contrary to to popular belief and its name, screensavers don’t save screens at all. Screensavers today are randomly generated abstract images which provide an uplifting viewing experience when we decide not to work for an extended period of time.

Windows Vista will be shipping with a list of new and update screensavers including: 3D Text, Aurora, Bubbles, Mystify, Photos, Ribbons, Windows Energy and Windows Logo. Some of these are even 3D based, so they will give the video card a good workout between boring sessions of word processing and spreadsheet charting. In this screencast, I am demonstrating the Ribbons, Mystify and Bubbles screensavers, but with a twist. In the RTM version of Windows Vista, the advanced options of the screensavers will not be available due to reasons I mentioned before. However these features can still be access through the registry, and they create some pretty cool effects!

Please note, this video does not accurately represent the actual performance of Windows Vista or the screensavers themselves. This is a technical limitation of the screen recording software. In actual use, the screensavers run very smoothly.

Update: The registry hacks has been released so you can customize the screensavers yourself.

The European Union could force Microsoft to delay the launch of Windows Vista in Europe due to anti-trust actions. The features under fire are Internet searching and document features. I don’t exactly know what they mean by “document features”, but knowing the European Commission, probably the ability to open text-file documents is monopolistic.

When January comes, I think Microsoft should just ship this instead of Windows Vista to Europe. And let productivity in the European economy be the judge of what features an operating system are allowed to have.