The following post contains speculation and opinions about the future. But since I don’t have a time machine, and Apple’s Time Machine only travels into the past for some reason, I make no warranties on the content.

CRN writes that “Partners say Vista RC1 Close But Not Quite Ready” but I think it might be worse than that. Windows Vista is definitely on schedule to meet the launch dates of November 2006 for business and enterprise and January 2007 for consumers, but the quality of the software will not meet my high expectations.

The good news is, Microsoft recently released Release Candidate 1 to testers and enthusiasts around the world and most of the feedback has been positive. My own experiences too reflect this. The installation performance is often overrated, I mean who installs Windows more than once on a daily/weekly/monthly basis? But nevertheless, Vista can install in less than 30 minutes. General performance is vastly improved over previous betas, and is now comparable to Windows XP. With still a lot of tweaking to go before RTM, I have no doubt the performance will be even better when it ships. Features work as well as they intended to. Search is amazingly fast and accurate. Sidebar will become handy as more gadgets are developed. Internet Explorer 7 is a much needed rejuvenation. You get my point. RC1 is a good sign of progress.

But here’s the bad news. Lots of little things will miss out, and remember it’s the little things that add up to the whole experience. I’m not talking about Aero Glass (or Diamond if it exists). I’m talking about things like the options dialog to the new screensavers. I know they exist, but I also know they won’t be shipping with Vista. Why? Because there’s no time. There is just too little time between now and RTM, that any change could have an adverse effect on the schedules, and you know how the directors at Microsoft must be feeling about schedules. Everything is pushed to either Vista SP1 or even the next version of Windows. The Vista screensavers are good enough, but with those options to customize it to your likings, they could have been amazing.

Good enough is where it will be at, not amazing. And that’s depressing. Having said all that, without a doubt, Windows Vista won’t be a flop like Windows ME, but also won’t be as polished as Mac OS X, where almost every user experience is crafted to pixel perfection. It took more than 5 years for Longhorn to get to the point where it is today, it saddens me to see it be forced out of production unpolished due to schedules and customer demand.

I just hope now Vista SP1 or the next version of Windows isn’t too far off.

To answer David Lempher‘s question, “Marketing pics, where do they get this stuff?”

Well, they get them from innocent looking office photos I guess.

Check out this subtle product placement in EUReKA, the awesome new Sci-Fi channel series. The show’s good but the network staff must have some pretty bad marketing planners.

A long long time ago (2003) in a land far far away (USA) people began speculating about the possibilities of “active wallpapers” in Longhorn (Windows Vista). Time has passed and without any further evidence of its existence, the rumours and speculation died off. But there might be hope.

Recently I’ve acquired a copy of early 2003 XAML code used to generate a fairly preliminary and bland version of the Aurora effect we have witnessed on and off in the past. Note this version of the Aurora is different to the one we witness today in the Vista installation and login screens. But this not only proves that you could generate a purely vector and animated version of Aurora using XAML, but you can run it at an acceptable level of performance.

I gave it a test run in Windows XP, but I suspect the performance in Vista (if this feature ever which could well ship with RTM) will be vastly improved. The performance of the Aurora in this video does not accurately represent the actual performance in XP due to the screen recording software.

Click image to view video (H.264, 1:14min)

Update: A little birdie told me a nice surprise might be shipping with Vista. Yay. 🙂

Windows Media Center is looking to be the best digital entertainment experience you can find on a PC. And in Windows Vista, Media Center is no longer sold as another edition of Windows which was not available for retail, but is going to be bundled in two editions of Windows Vista, Home Premium and Ultimate.

Whether you are sitting 2-foot or 10-foots away from the monitor, Media Center is going to deliver your TV, movies, music, and pictures in an engaging and easy-to-use experience. In this screencast, I run through a quick demo of Windows Media Center giving a look at the library navigation, a bundled free third-party visualizer called “G-Force”, picture slideshow, recorded TV and search.

Note: Windows Media Center is fully capable of supporting widescreen displays. However for the purpose of this demonstration, it is formatted in the 4×3 aspect ratio.

Click image to play video (H.264, 4:43min)

Whether you love or hate Aero (Glass) in Windows Vista, there’s one person that I would have never guessed of even having the slightest desire to care about the style of the user interface. And he can’t even see.

James Senior, a Microsoft technical evangelist, met this interesting fellow in Paris on training. I would imagine there are few like him, Saqib Shaikh is blind, but is also a developer. James had an informal chat with him over dinner and wrote about the experience. The interview itself is extremely insightful, and James’ commentary about the atmosphere makes me really really hungry.

This just shows how important it is to develop accessibility features from a ISV’s perspective all the way up to an operating system. Even if you are affecting the lives of only 5% of the users, the difference it makes between allowing that person to not able to use the computer at all and being fully capable of using a computer for even commercial purposes is just astonishing. Big thumbs up to all those people who develop tools assisting handicapped people.