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  ActiveWin.com: New High Resolution Microsoft Windows Vista February 2006 CTP Build 5308 Screenshots Gallery - Updated!
Time: 03:00 EST/08:00 GMT | News Source: ActiveWin.com | Posted By: Robert Stein

We have posted up some screenshots of the new Microsoft Windows Vista February 2006 Community Technical Preview Build 5308. These shots show IE 7, installing, welcome center, system properties, windows gadgets, the desktop, WMP 11, Windows photo gallery, sidebar (different skins), and Flip 3D. Screenshots were provided in part by Utaks and Windows Connected. Updated: We have just posted ten new, additional screenshots. These new shots are of Flip 3d, games, and a variety of other features. Check them out!

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#1 By 116 (70.113.124.5) at 2/22/2006 3:03:48 PM
I didn't like that sidebar before but thats looking pretty sweet I could see how I would actually make use of it now. Flip3d looks incredible. I hope its not just eyecandy for the sake of eyecandy though *<cough> os x </cough>*

Peace,
RA

#2 By 1401 (65.255.137.20) at 2/22/2006 4:36:04 PM
You only get glass if you have a glass support video card

#3 By 1401 (65.255.137.20) at 2/22/2006 4:49:43 PM
The UI in IE7 is a joke! If that's final, I just won't be able to believe it. There is no rhyme or reason to it at all. The back and forward buttons way over on the left, but the home button way over on the right. The refresh and stop buttons combined into one button. It's just plain stupid. I'd rather use Firefox, and FF is a POS!

This post was edited by chrishedlund on Wednesday, February 22, 2006 at 16:50.

#4 By 7754 (216.160.8.41) at 2/22/2006 5:04:14 PM
The interface is coming along... I wasn't so crazy about it before, but some of the tweaks they've made help greatly. It's not revolutionary, but it's not "this isn't Windows! Change it back!" either--for which I'm grateful, I guess.

I hope the MMC consoles are due to be spiced-up before RTM, though--they look like a hodgepodge of old and new at the moment. The event viewer has some great new features; unfortunately, pleasant appearance is not one of them (yet).

The file manager has changed at least a little with each version of Windows. I always felt Windows Explorer was a great file manager, and the 2000/XP versions of it were excellent. I'm confused with the one in Vista; I haven't had much time to play with it, but so far, it's a big change. Maybe it's better once I get familiar with it? Even if it is, though, they will take some serious knocks if it doesn't change, unless perhaps it's a necessary precursor to WinFS. I'm familiar with document management systems, though, and even if it's a WinFS placeholder, the UI needs some work. They have a fantastic opportunity not only to break with tradition, but to introduce something truly wonderful (and necessary, really).

I'm looking forward to downloading it. Hopefully it performs at least a little better than the December CTP.

#5 By 7760 (12.155.143.50) at 2/22/2006 5:14:51 PM
chrishedlund, the refresh and stop buttons haven't been the same button for months. Take a closer look at the 2nd screenshot. Also, who even uses the Home button, especially frequently. No, most people don't use it very much, hence the reason why it's not near the buttons that you do use often.

StormChaser, see if there's a Vista driver for your video card or chipset. Nvidia and ATi both have drivers for their video chipsets; others may, as well.

#6 By 1401 (65.255.137.20) at 2/22/2006 6:36:36 PM
I use the home button (well - I use Opera, so....)

But in my IE6 setup, I have the back, forward, stop, refresh and home butons and that's it - then I have the address bar in line with the buttons and the menu bar - everything on one single row - that's all I need.

#7 By 1401 (65.255.137.20) at 2/22/2006 6:37:27 PM
LOL! 'Force glass', makes is sound like you want to rape your computer...

#8 By 23275 (68.17.42.38) at 2/22/2006 7:46:31 PM
Gawd...the pain...the anguish....the horror of it all...and I've run, it, too and....

"I HATE IT." There, I said it. Chris is right about IE 7, too. It STINKS! The UI is the worst I have ever used and Microsoft [look, I really like all your servers and love your platform and had huge hopes of just dying for Vista].

Now, I am certain, I can turn this "Clutter Hut" - all that added info off....GAWD, it just sticks..., BUT I do not look forward to having to do that. Clearly, this thing is headed for 20-22" 16:9 screens - well, someone better tell the 40 Million devs out here to re-tool, because the format just stinks as far as apps go [and I am writing this from an MCE 2005 box 8' from a 32" LCD, and yes, most apps formats stink. IE 7 really stinks - not the speed, not the security, but the UI - freaking dreadful!

Please, Microsoft, go club whatever pink butterfly you hired to lead this... I mean the Recycle Bin looks like an over done piece from an over done set from Star Dock. It just stinks. It's all "Bunyan" a term we use in our shop when something looks to big, floppy, crayon'ish and this just stinks. What the flip were you all thinking??????? It's too busy and too much "junk" all over the joint. Half the dang screen is eaten up by stuff any user with a few months on a box already knows....get it....we know...we know where our "stuff" is and how to find it, use it and manage it.

Blasted ancillary information all over the place...and IE 7 just stinks - two stinking levels just to turn of the lock sliders check so I can even see the freaking IE Options....I hate it and all this wasted space. I have mombo screens - three (3) count em three (3) 19" LCD's and on each, I want MY information not a bunch of stuff I already know. It's all just a distracting mess.

yeah, yeah, yeah - I know....I'll be able to turn it off [we had better be able to....].

Who did you all hire...? Some butterfly hugging freak show, I bet - I bet it is someone that hates Microsoft and is working for Apple, or has an Apple at home.

I mean, some of our teenage Daughters will dig all this crap - may be, if they don't puke because it's too sweet. GAWD - I'm just dying here and IE 7 just stinks! and PNG????? PHK .PNG mongo sizes....mongo....I hate it. Whose PNG backside are guys kissing? You should have crushed them. ./Rant and Office Live....???? Oh Gawd.... Oh Gawd.... ./Rant - JUST how Clutter Hut are we gonna go here.....??? How dang busy can one page get....???

If these are hints at what you are going to do to us....? Then I am out.... I'll hang nothing but terminals running embedded and be done with it. Whomever you hired [look for the touchy-feel good moron with pink crap in their hair, and club her/him with a ball bat till her/his clothes change color], because they HAVE DESTROYED Windows.

Now where is the turn this crap off switch???? I bet it's buried nine layers deep....

And finally….the previously “UBIQUITOUS” START button – why did you remove it – I do not care if the chick on Channel 9 asserts that people “Know” it’s the Start button. You/she have broken THE RULE in branding as well as building discoverable apps – a) START was synonymous with Windows! And b) START was the beginning of all things discoverable – “a known beginning point…” Step “A” in building any app, or OS. I can just hear everyone of us…”Ok, Ma’am, please click the START button….and either the user will say, “What START button, or worse, they’ll turn the dang machine off.” “Put all that ancillary crap in front of people and that is just that much more crap they are going to ask tech’s about…what’s this….what’s this mean….???? Gawd – just take us all out and kill us with a club. And sit that gal on channel 9 down in from of a console at the help desk for six months…your OS would reflect what she would have learned – hopefully!

#9 By 23275 (68.17.42.38) at 2/22/2006 7:58:40 PM
#7, I use the "Home" button about 150 times a day - as my home page is a custom WSS page/Site with all my links and apps layed out on it. I bet Chris' is, too - or something like that.

The UI is just garbage. I can't stand it. They all but gave oral love to FF and OSX.

For the last time..."When you are in a RACE, DRIVE YOUR OWN CAR!"

Tomorrow, I begin my personal search for a new OS. A multices of some sort - by God in heaven I swear it!

Gawd are they stupid....they have dorked the very people that sell all their stuff for them...they have hammered us.

This post was edited by lketchum on Wednesday, February 22, 2006 at 19:59.

#10 By 23275 (68.17.42.38) at 2/22/2006 8:13:52 PM
MS was punk'd - this all has to be a sad joke.

"I'm going to wake up and find it was all a bad dream.... and the BOW BEFORE the Tabbed Browser IDIOTS will vomit up their Koolaid and remember their task bars...."

"Trendy" - so many people wanting to show just how different they are....by being just like everyone else...

GAWD. It is a BLACK day, indeed. Please for the love of God, Microsoft, in the set up, or OPK init, please, please, please with NO SUGAR on top, provide a check box that reads, "Are you truly an adult...an individual and can you read....if so, click here and we'll cut down on the syrup......" Under that have it read..."Trendy, really cool people, just ignore that check box and enjoy becoming a type 1 diabetic on us..."

#11 By 23275 (68.17.42.38) at 2/22/2006 8:14:50 PM
May be Google will actually build an OS - them's people that know how to build a home page.... very "CLEAN" free of cotton candy.

#12 By 1401 (65.255.137.20) at 2/22/2006 8:15:09 PM
way to go ketchum - I'm right there with ya man

#13 By 1401 (65.255.137.20) at 2/22/2006 8:18:11 PM
yes - a Google OS - wouldn't that be sweet? I know they've already got their own file system. With the power of Google search baked right into the OS. Imagine being able to search your own home pc from anywhere on the internet from google.com and getting what you need from just about anywhere.

#14 By 23275 (68.17.42.38) at 2/22/2006 9:36:46 PM
#17, we can hope, but I doubt it....

They're public now and it's all about share price and earnings per share from here on out for Google... - read, "They will cave to every feature-freak on the planet to "appear" as though they are doing "something - anything" to increase earnings per share." They'll end up a flipping pink haired clutter-hut, too. Gawd, it's like a candle shop - nasal overload and a desperate run for fresh air.

On the CTP for Vista...I am just dying inside. They need to slap the goo'ey outta the paint sniffing freaks that did this. Look, it's really simple...human beings have vision subject to motion blur. A computer screen is static - relative to human vision. unlike a book, that moves with our eyes, a screen does not - hence, our ability to sense even the slightest bit of movement. Men can actually see 180 plus frames a second and woman, on average as much as 220 frames per second. Motion Blur is used to trick us into seeing movement fluidly - when we move, and an object does not move with us, we lose focus.

This is why apps/OS designers need to be a) male and b) have less than perfect vision, or they need to review apps interfaces on a scope - not review art elements on paper [where the copy and their eyes move together]. In reality, computers display content poorly - relative to how our eyes and brains process images - too much and our eyes cannot focus on the target - like pointing with one's head.

A GUI, depends on accurate pointing - the alignment of one's eyes and a relative line to one's hand. Dork this with garbage and the lines break and the user cannot point - with the head.

My bet is that the people that did this were female, young and with near super-normal vision [20/10 or better]. They also grew up with new equipment, have not worked at MS very long and are likely really attractive people in many ways - personality, etc...

They drove this mess - off of a cliff - they should have hired a 50 year old Optometrist to test these and inject some dang science. The facts are that imagery and 4D graphics have evolved faster and ahead of human vision. Fine. That is cool in a movie, where the over-effect is more of an instantaneous experience. PC's are not at all like that - they are sustained views - sustained visualizations.

As humans we eat meat - or we should. We have stereo-optic binocular vision because we needed it. Our eyes are set in the center of our faces and we largely look forward - so we can bit little critters we once hunted. Our vision is pretty specific. Vista takes our vision for a Missouri Boat-Ride and retards focus and what was once perfect about Windows - its discoverability, is now hidden and obfuscated by trash, clutter and pretty little things.

Whomever did this loves art and hated computers, people and productivity. They loved art for the sake of it. That's why it no longer works - it no longer inspires. Vista and IE 7 and Office Live just insult - the senses and they ignore human physiology. Just because it has color does not make it art. Logic, it can be said, is beautiful. What is beautiful is often seen as art.
Science is the same. I just hate this and I am sad for Microsoft and all of us that looked forward to Vista. Google, your creators are at this moment, melancholy for when they were a private company.

#15 By 1401 (65.255.137.20) at 2/22/2006 9:49:51 PM
I see about 4 or 5 frames per second, but that's because I'm drunk most of the time...

um.. I'm in Missouri btw...so watch what you say about our boat rides...(and watch what you say about my sister, er...I mean my wife...)

And I think you're wrong about the google OS - you say that Google is public and only sees earnings per share, etc. Well hell, the OS business obviously is huge in terms of a money making business - billions upon billions for MS each year - Hell, even UNIX sold 17 some odd billion last year. So if I was running Google (which I should be) - I'd be seriously looking at some type of business model.

I think Google's problem is they don't know how to sell software. Selling software is an art Microsoft has mastered.

This post was edited by chrishedlund on Wednesday, February 22, 2006 at 21:58.

#16 By 23275 (68.17.42.38) at 2/22/2006 10:42:04 PM
Chris, a Missouri Boat_ride is what Missouran's do to others - they set em loose to wonder aimlessly through life.

There's a big difference...they guys who created MS still run the show for the most part - any company like Google, who's stock has doen what it stock has done, is no longer their company - the share holders drive it and sooner or later, they'll exit - that's the whole point to equity and the only downside to a free maket society - it has little heart. MS remained influenced by its founder - until now. That's just my thinking. A unix is not enough - a freebie teaching adaptation of a multices. No, I'd be begging for the now abandoned national standard technical workstation - it was a dream and had a windowing system long before RAND/Xerox and Apple ever thought about it. So sweet it was...

#17 By 1401 (65.255.137.20) at 2/22/2006 10:56:35 PM
Let me know how that search for the new OS goes ketchum, I may be right behind you...(wandering aimlessly of course)

This post was edited by chrishedlund on Wednesday, February 22, 2006 at 22:57.

#18 By 23275 (68.17.42.38) at 2/23/2006 12:40:06 AM
Well...it can't be Multics (Multiplexed Information and Computing Service) - the last compatible hardware went offline in 2000... anyone remember PL/1 ? Boy there was a debate - assembler purists - v those using some of the first compilers... not unlike *nix -v Win32 fights..well, sort of...

The new OS...hard to say now... it will have to be some form of commercial Unices - given how few project OS'es are in meaningful and open development. Some of the late 90's stuff was so cool - XOS, etc... Probably Solaris. Definately something commercial - I want the devs to get paid and and don't want the competition to get the cash. Something "clean" ... I mean,
an OS is an application, after all... one that sets up an environment for one to run applications of one's desire. Some bloody, how, MS forgot that. What I mean is, I want it to get out of the flipping way. I don't want it to be the end all and I really believe MS has lost its collective mind. How can a company that so gorgeously virtualized the name space in R2, be the same company that came up with this...this mess, dripping with what...? I can't even describe it.
Some day, someone is going to say, "It was about the environment, stupid!" MS once had it locked - precisely because its OS allowed people to decide for themselves - if they tanked because they were naive, or foolish - cool - tank away. My God, I can't even see the environment any longer...where'd it go? Where are any of MY apps to go? All this rubbish - looks like one of those Zoo or roller Coaster Tycoon games where a kid just goes nuts adding crap all over the place. And tabs by default..... oh goody...now we all get to shift our eyes up and freaking down the entire screen all the time - time, people, time millionths of a second matter. I mean, I can flat out make a system fly...just work it...push it and get load done - in and out of the console all day and just fly. Now in Vista, I feel like I have to dodge all over the place. Yeah, yeah yeah....don't even say it - I KNOW - one can turn it off, but that is not my point...ONE SHOULD NOT HAVE TO. Good design does not require it.

"Fluffer Butter" I'm staring a rumor - among the 6 or 60 versions MS will ship, there will be a fluffer-butter version with the fluffer-butter theme and fluffer-butter icons that will drip animated goo when one hovers over them. Gawd, Mr. Gates, please go pistol whip someone in the art department - I'm going to paint "START" in translucent paint on every PC I see running this mess. with a small sub-title that reads, "Look idiot, START does not mean power button...

Oh, back to the new OS - Solaris. I've decided....and...I'm going to begin servicing systems based upon it, too. With it, one can set up very specific environments, perfectly suited to each application [remember, the ones we choose to run...?].

#19 By 21203 (71.111.5.199) at 2/23/2006 12:54:36 AM
Chris: You can move the home button (along with feeds, tools, etc) under the back/forward button, if it's anything like the IE7 latest build for XP. Generally I get rid of everything but the Feeds button since all of that is available in the menu (tap Alt), but you can get the home button there too.

#20 By 9549 (12.150.6.130) at 2/23/2006 6:55:18 AM
I haven't had the pleasure of using IE7 yet but this if for those who have used it; Can't you move all the button icons anywhere you want on the bar? This has been in IE6 and before I can't see why they would take that out. So what are we bitching about; out of the box defaults that we are going to customize anyway?

#21 By 61 (72.64.155.167) at 2/23/2006 7:51:15 AM
On that install screenshot, what is that XP Theme, I saw it on my friends fresh Gateway computer and didn't think to look at the display properties to find out what it is.

#22 By 15406 (216.191.227.68) at 2/23/2006 8:14:55 AM
I warning you all. If you don't stop bashing Vista and IE7, you'll make Parkkker cry!

#23 By 23275 (68.17.42.38) at 2/23/2006 8:20:54 AM
#24, That's part of the point.... in IE 7 Beta 2 [yes, we all know it's a BETA], one cannot move them around - one cannot even move items around inside the bars and even when unlocked, only very limited movement of sliders is possible. So, if you're a user like myself, who DOES NOT use tabs, it is a mess. One is just "Stuck" with the UI as is, "Froofy and FF-Like"

#24 By 12071 (203.214.147.215) at 2/23/2006 8:41:29 AM
Right... who stole lketchum's identity? We all know him better than to ever say anything even remotely close to something that could be potentially perceived as negative towards Microsoft!

#27 FF basher boy - FF doesn't show the tabs until you have... wait for it... opened up a new tab... imagine that! If you don't open up a tab you'll never even know that tab's a possible - maybe that's why IE shows them by default, to put that functionality right into the users face. I used to be a tab critic, and still am as I hate them in nearly every other application... but in FF, love them! Now back to your IE7 bashing.

#25 By 8556 (12.217.111.92) at 2/23/2006 9:34:31 AM
A couple of tablespoons of Pepto should take care of the upset stomach from all the frenzy about the latest build. Send your feedback to MS with the emotional reactions removed bu using the instructions provided. Someone WILL read it. If enough of the 1/2 million beta testers send in helpful feedback, changes will be made. Once it's cast in stone, or gold in this case, it's too late to have them pay attention to your comments.

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