This is the first in a series of articles looking at some of the key new features of Windows Vista. This article is based on a prerelease build of Vista (Release Candidate 1). Bugs and minor tweaks aside, the feature set discussed in these articles should be pretty much identical to the shipping product, since Release Candidate 1 comes at the end of the product development cycle and should be pretty much feature-complete. Regardless, due to that fact, this article should not be taken as an actual scored review. This particular article will cover the changes made to Windows Explorer, the Start menu, Taskbar, and associated elements of Vista.

And I’m sorry in advance for mentioning Mac OS X a few times in this article. When you write an article like this, sometimes comparisons are inevitable.

Anyway, let’s jump in, shall we?

Windows in, uh, Windows

So what has changed, you ask? A lot. Windows Vista may represent the largest overhaul of the Windows user interface since Windows 95, and I’m not just talking about eye candy, either. Let’s first take a look at the typical Windows Explorer window:

A typical Windows Explorer window contains back and forward buttons, a search field, toolbar (similar to the task pane in Windows XP), and customizable “favorite links” pane. Similarities to OS X’s Finder aside (search field in the upper right, customizable favorites pane), the window layout is much cleaner, and in my opinion, more efficient, than that of Windows XP. Additionally, Windows Explorer now features a “Breadcrumb” which shows the path to the current folder. Clicking inside the breadcrumb field switches it to the more traditional pathname view (i.e. ye olde c:\ path), allowing users to type in the filename path just like the old days. I like the breadcrumb and wish Apple included it in the Finder (and before anyone asks, yes I know about the “Path” button I can add to the Finder toolbar, as well as what command-clicking the folder’s name in the titlebar does).

By default, the menubar is hidden in Windows Explorer and a few other bundled applications. Instead, Microsoft makes common tasks available via a toolbar similar to the task pane in Windows XP. The new design is a good deal more efficient than XP’s task pane; for one, it takes up less screen space than the task pane did, which lets Microsoft use the left pane in Explorer windows for something else. Microsoft accomplished this by shortening the command titles. For example, instead of something like “Burn photos to a disc” or “Play a side show of my photos,” (I’m not sure what XP’s exact wording was off hand) Vista simply uses “Burn” and “Slide Show.”

Speaking of slide shows, for some strange reason, Windows Vista cannot smoothly handle a crossfade in the full-screen on-the-fly slideshow, something OS X handles easily on the same exact hardware (a Core Duo MacBook. Why is this? I have no idea. But I digress.

Where the task pane used to live is now occupied by the favorite links list. If you’ve used Mac OS X, you already know how to use this. Sort of. The favorite links page accepts shortcuts to folders and saved searches with a simple drag-and-drop. However, you cannot drop applications or files into the favorite links pane. Dragging the link out of the pane will leave a shortcut where-ever you drop it. For the most part, it works as you would expect it to under Windows.

Searching high and low

If you’ve ever tried searching in Windows XP, you know that it could be a painful experience at times. Search in vista is greatly improved over that of XP in both speed and ease of use, although it isn’t quite what Microsoft wanted to deliver with WinFS. Starting a search is easy enough: press the Windows key to open the Start menu or select any Windows Explorer search field and start typing. Results pop up as you type. If you search via the Start menu, Windows Vista will return the top results from various categories. You can view all results by selecting “Show all results.” Granted, I don’t have a lot of files on this machine, but searching is very fast. This is what a standard search window looks like:

As you can see, I can sort by various filetypes, email, documents, picture, music, and “other.” At first glance Windows Vista’s advanced searching features seemextremely limited. Here’s what an advanced search window looks like:

Filtering the contents of a folder or search by file type.

I can search for tags or authors or various date attributes or file size without a problem, but a number of the more advanced searching features are tucked away, hidden from view from most users. For example, there is no obvious way in the search window to narrow down my search to Word documents. This functionality is indeed there, but it’s hidden. To access this feature, mouse over the “Type” header” and click the down-pointing arrow. This will bring up a checkbox list of filetypes present in the search. Click the checkbox next to “TXT File,” for example, and the search will be narrowed to only include TXT (plain text) files. Similar features exist for the other headings as well. For example, under the Folder header, you can choose to narrow your search to particular locations of files in the search. The best part is that these functions exist throughout Windows Explorer, not just in search. You can filter the contents of any folder in this manner. The filtering is very well done; it’s just a pity that Microsoft decided to stow them all away in some relatively hidden location where most mere mortals won’t think to look. If anything, some of these capabilities should be made more obvious in the search window. For example, clicking “Other” could result in a pop-up menu where you can specify which file types you want to see.

Also hidden in these drop-down lists are Stacks, a feature which behaves like a hybrid between “smart” folders and the Windows grouping feature that has been present since Windows XP. It’s a little hard to explain, so I’ll let the screenshots do the talking. Instead of grouping files by tags under different headings, you get something that looks a little bit like this:

Clicking on a stack will show you all the items that fall under that category, so clicking on “Flowers” will show only those items with the tag” flowers.”

Windows Vista includes Saved Searches, which are as their name suggests: a saved search! If you’ve used Saved Searches before, either in Mac OS X or with Microsoft’s MSN Toolbar with Windows Desktop Search, the idea is the same: search for something, click a “Save” button, give your saved search a name and save it to a location, and boom, you’ve got a saved search. What can I say? It works as expected.

Okay, I’ve covered a lot of ground so far, but there’s still a bit left to cover.

Stand up. Walk away from your computer. Get something to drink. Feed the dog. Stretch your legs.

Ready? Let’s keep going. It’s not quite War and Peace, but still.

Start me up!

The Start menu has seen a number of tweaks since Windows XP. Can I even call it the Start menu anymore? The menu’s button is more of a blue orb with a Windows logo now, which seems strange because the “Start” menu has become such a key part of using Windows. At least you no longer have to click on “Start” to stop Windows.

Okay, enough of that.

At first glance, Vista’s Start menu looks very similar to XP’s Start menu. It’s two columns, with applications on the left and various other items on the right. Beyond that, the Start menu has undergone a bit of rearranging. The left column still looks and behaves the same, but the right column has undergone some reorganization. Seasoned XP users will most likely have to re-train their muscle memory to navigate it. I don’t know how many times I clicked on “Computer” when I meant to select the Control Panel! There are also a couple of new items in this region of the Start menu: Games (pretty self-explanatory) and your name, which takes you to your user home.

Windows Vista’s Start menu.

The left-hand column has one new addition and one feature that has changed considerably in Vista. First, there is the search field, which I covered earlier. The All Programs menu item has changed so much that it might as well be a new feature. Instead of spawning a mess of submenus when clicked, clicking “All programs” now replaces the left-hand column of the Start menu with a scrolling list (i.e. with a scrollbar) of all the applications and folders contained under “All Programs.” When in “All programs” mode, the “All programs” menu item changes to a “back” item, which will take you back to the standard Start menu pane. Items in this scrolling list behave much like items in the Folders pane in an Explorer window: clicking a folder “expands” the folder to display its contents. Clicking an application launches it. To be honest, I’m not sure I like the new approach. Yes, it’s better than the crapload of submenus, but it still feels awkward to browse through an entire folder structure in such a confined space. I can see where trying to navigate through multiple levels of folders could become very tedious very quickly.

The Task Master

The Taskbar’s window thumbnails.

What would a discussion of the Start menu be without making mention of the taskbar? Like the Start menu, the taskbar doesn’t look all that different at first glance, new theme aside. By and large, the taskbar is indeed unchanged from XP. There are a couple new features of note, however. When you mouse over the taskbar buttons for open or minimized windows, a thumbnail of the window pops up. Now instead of relying on the name of the window alone, users can actually see the window before they click the taskbar button. It’s definitely a welcome addition. Unfortunately, it does not work on older machines that do not support Aero.

The second big addition to the taskbar are the improvements to the system tray items. Mousing over Vista’s system tray icons (like volume, the clock, battery, etc...) results in an expanded tooltip showing current settings. Clicking the tray item presents the user with a pop-up window where you can change some common settings. For example, if I mouse over the battery meter tray item, Vista will tell me how much battery charge I have, its status (plugged in, charging, etc...), and my current power plan. Clicking the icon allows me to change my power plan and provides links to some related settings. Here’s an example of what you get when clicking the Network tray icon:

All in all, it is far better than the XP implementation of tray icons. As for the icons themselves, the ones included with Vista are far simpler and easier to read than the equivalent icons in XP. Score one for usability!

Wrapping it up and mailing it off

There’s so much to cover here that I am not going to get into it all. I wish I had the time to get into Flip3D, the sidebar, and a few other things, but I have to wrap this article up at some point. You can expect me to get into Flip3D, the sidebar, and some of the other shell features I may have missed in this article later. This much can be said so far: Windows Vista is more than “Windows XP Service Pack 3,” as some people like to say. There is more to the Explorer shell than eye candy, there are actual usability enhancements that’ll make any Windows user happy.