Steve's TS2 Insider

Q: (from John)

Steve,Good to see you again. It really helps to have a consistent face from Microsoft. And one that isn't all marketing spin.We first started running into each other when ASCII was a co-sponsor.As to feedback about Vista, I server professional services people: Architects Engineers, lawyers. People who use their computers a lot every day in intensive file and calculation applications.It's slow. We want snappy a operating system. Vista is less responsive in basic file opens than XP Pro.It's hard to find things. Some simple things in XP which were 1-2 clicks are 4-6 clicks. For example checking IP status. XP: Right click on Network Neighborhood, Properties, Right click LAN, Status. In Vista, you have to drill down through many more layers.Hiding data. People really hate Windows hiding information. We want the Details view to always be the default, not icons. Folders should always open in Explorer mode. We always want to see ALL file extensions and never hide OS files.We would really like a GPO that controls all of these settings, XP Pro doesn't have one and haven't tried Vista GPO. We use third party such as Scriptlogic to control. (Hmm wonder if we can do it with Powershell?)Early Vista adoption was slow because you changed the TCPIP stack. We have lots of clients using Netware for file servers, the lack of a Netware client slowed everything.Vista Wireless fails to connect to many SECURE access points like Sonicwall. XP Pro has no trouble, Vista sees, but can't connect.Out of about 1,000 desktops under my control, we have maybe 3 Vista. AutoCAD runs slower under Vista. So lots of people have licenses, but we deploy XP Pro (SA on all of these new Vista only machines).On Powershell, I was one of the earlier adapters of Exchange 2007. I find the lack of documentation of what's done in GUI and what's in Powershell very frustrating. You know how you did it in 2003 Exchange Manager, but they don't even leave a cookie trail in 2007 Manager. There needs to be a matrix of "This way in 2003, then do this in 2007 or PowerShell."The Powershell Exchange scripts often don't have very good examples. A lot of trial and error to get the syntax right.So as usual I learned a few ne tricks.

A:

Again, thanks for the frank feedback. Remember, you can provide this feedback directly to Microsoft at:

http://connect.microsoft.com

Regarding performance, I would be interested in knowing if you have explored SP1. I realize my sole example is just antidotal, but I've have seen a distinct improvement in Windows Explorer performance since I installed SP1 (and I came in being skeptical)

Hard to find things: I use the desktop search and the control panel search ALL of the time to find applications and files on my system. If you aren’t finding something that you know is there, have to reviewed the scope of the search tool?

PowerShell only helps with applications that have been extended to support the PowerShell API (applications that have exposed their controls to the PowerShell programming environment). The ability to control what is visible in Windows Explorer can be controlled through the registry, which can be managed through a custom Group Policy.