Thoughts on Vista from a non-computer person

Previously, I installed Vista on my home computer. Here are some comments from my wife. I found her feedback interesting because her usage patterns are closer to the average than mine are. She's not a developer (would never use Visual Studio or write a .bat file), and her main computer usage is web browsing and Word.

Here was her list:

  1. My IE icon disappeared from the desktop
  2. I like the fish screen saver
  3. I like the little preview bubble that shows up when you put the arrow over the things in the taskbar.
  4. It was hard to figure out how to go up a folder (I miss the old "up" button) but then I found the new buttons and now it's ok
  5. The desktop icons and icons in the folders are kind of big and clunky. I liked them better littler.
  6. I like how some of the icons are no longer generic (now it shows a little picture of my photo as the icon, not just a generic folder)
  7. I like how when you move the mouse over a button it highlights it, even the little "close" x in the corner for example.
  8. It's kind of cute that the frames are translucent, but whatever--i don't really care.

I found it interesting that she hasn't mentioned UAC yet. That means that she's getting the security benefits without it apparently getting in the way.