What new features in Vista do you like?

I know a lot of people hate Vista and they have their reasons. But for those who like it, what are your favourite features?

 

I enjoy the instant search!

 

I liked the Sidebar.
I had weather for our current home and my wife's home town, showing all the time. I would say, "It is 20º here, and minus one in Tver."

In the end, I didn't like it enough to wait for Vista to do things, so the Sidebar is relegated to a seldom-used partition on a dual-boot Vostro I built.

 

I like all of the settings you can tweak in terms of how everything looks and operates...

I simply like how it feels to go through folders and through all of the menus in Vista. It seems more intuitive to me, and simply smoother.

Also, I like that there is a search/run (yes it does both ) right in the start menu.

l guess in the end it is hard for me to pinpoint what I like, but Vista has defnitely proved to be my favorite OS.

 

oooh ya. I can't believe I forgot that. >.< lol

I really like having the Sidebar. I use it for weather, my HD usage, and for making myself quick sticky notes.

 

instant search and the aero look, way easier on the eyes. also i like the sidebar, lol ive got a calvin and hobbes comic widget to distract me while working on my reports and designs.

lol and all my games are working xD

 

the smooth aero.. the sidebar convenience.. and with ultimate, the Dreamscene babyyy!!... oh man, just put clouds moving, or a flowing river... so peaceful...

 

I like the fact that you can preview the document in the folder using the preview pane. I miss this when I am using XP and I have to look for a document for my father, who invariably does not know what it was saved as but knows what it contains.

 

Another thing I like as well that I forgot to mention (sorry I keep thinking of them now lol) is how you can put your mouse over the taskbar of a window that is minimized (or not on top) and see what would be displayed there if you click it. That was a nice touch IMO.

 

^Yesss!!! I love that even if it's a video you could see it playing through that. Kinda like PIP

 

Yeah, I like that too.

 

I also like that All Programs is a drop menu instead of going all across the desktop

 

My favorite is the instant search. I also like the windows update because it is much better than in xp.

 

My favs in no particular order:

• Instant Search
• Prefetch (Vista's memory management)
• Look and Feel (Aero and general usability for less tech savvy users--not for myself but for troubleshooting others' problems)
• Sidebar
• Renaming "Documents and Settings" to "Users" (this drove me nuts for all w2k-based systems )
• Windows Defender (once you enable HIPS aka Spynet Advanced Membership or whatever they call it)

If you have a system capable of handling it... I think it's totally worth it.

 

- Built-in search that's integrated with Explorer (and with the Start menu and Control Panel).
- Improved volume control/mixer. (If you want to know what I mean, try adjusting the master volume in Windows XP while using headphones. Then try it on Vista. Also, having per-application volume settings is nice too.)
- UAC, so nothing can mess with the OS without my permission
- Sensible defaults (so I don't have to change all the annoying sounds as soon as I install the OS).
- Finds drivers for me on the internet automatically (although probably XP did this too... I don't remember)
- Looks nice right out of the box
- Taskbar thumbnails, which actually saves me time by helping me to quickly find the right window I want to bring up.
- Defender... especially its startup program manager (Software Explorer).

 

Aero and taskbar thumbnails

 

Here is my List :

1. Aero ( Looks Great to Work on for Hours )
2. Performance & Stability
3. Live Thumbnail Preview ( when i play eve and check email i can see the status of my ship in Realtime )
4. Insta Search
and many more small stuff i can remember hehe

 

- Start Menu search
-Aero

 

as in many above posts:
. performance
. stability

and :
. semi-smart OS, learning to adapt to user's system usage preferences after a while

cheers ...

 

The way it has basically all the cool features that leopard has

Watch this video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JpR6jwQXc3Y

It is a Commentary for a leopard features video, with all of the thing being doine in vista without 3rd party software. Some of the things like on the coverflow bit is amazing and i didnt know you could do that in vista

 

- Gaming Performance (since SP1 Vista has been great for gaming - I now get higher frames in WoW, TF2, Bioshock, & COD4 than I do in XP)
- Aero Interface
- Sidebar
- Instant Search (love this!)
- Driver Updates - these actually work some of the time when I go into device manager and have it search for updated drivers. XP NEVER worked for me.
- Superfetch - after you give Vista a few weeks it remembers what you like to do most often w/ your computer
- Flip3D (windows key + tab) - similar to Alt+Tab but previews your windows that you can flip through. The fact that it shows youtube videos while you're flipping through is great.

 

If I'm not mistaken though Vista was released first... so really it should be looked at from the viewpoint that those things Vista can do Leopard is also doing. XD

 

lol i dunno if anyone mentioned also the picture gallery has an automatic slideshow feature with themes, its pretty awesome for showing off pictures u took the other night with friends or family. lol no need to make ur slideshow vista does it for you!

also the live preview is pretty useful. i dont have to click on any of the running programs, i just hover d mouse over.

 

I really like how smooth Vista is compared to previous operating systems. The taskbar thumbnails feature, which has been mentioned quite a bit, was a wonderful idea. I also like Aero and the search function too.

 

I love Aero as well. The interface as a whole looks a lot prettier than XP and runs a lot more smoothly.

Love the search function. The sidebar is definitely a cool addition.

All in all I'm glad I went to Vista.