Let me start off by defending myself to avoid any "I told you so" comments from the start. ;-) I know the rule of thumb that you're not supposed to install an operating system before the first service pack (or however all the other OSs sugarcoat the same concept) was released. I also know that it's risky to do that on anything else than a test machine. But let's face it. Using a system on a day-to-day basis is the only true way to get an objective impression. Reading about it and using it for 10 minutes on a test system with no software installed just won't do it.

So, I went ahead and installed the system on my laptop, a Lenovo T60. What I'm covering in the first three articles should be mostly hardware independent as I'm focusing on the user interface and the general feeling. But for the record, I did use all the latest drivers and upgrade the BIOS.

The good

File search: If you've been working with Windows for a long time, you might remember that the last version to have an easy-to-use file search was Windows ... uuh ... never mind! It seems that as our hard drives grow to astronomic sizes Microsoft finally decided to help users finding again what they lost two weeks after the installation of XP.

In Vista, searching just seems to work. You can use one of the many little edit boxes with the magnifying glass logo (e.g. in the start menu, in Explorer, etc.) and just type away. Most likely the search brings up the right files, documents, and even e-mails.

The search is not perfect, but it's very fast and it gets the job done for most uses. If you need to find that specific .dll you know must be somewhere below the C:\Program Files\ directory, you still need to go the few extra steps because they are not indexed by default. But that's okay.

Start menu: Much has been written about the Vista start menu. It may not be perfect but I still think it's a good compromise between not confusing XP users and efficiency.

The fact that you can now hit the Windows button on your keyboard and start typing the name of your favorite program alone makes it a lot more efficient than the one we knew and hated since Windows 95. Entries (except for the pinned ones) are now sorted by default, so the hardly intuitive Sort by name context menu entry has disappeared. It's also easier to navigate in big menus (I've seen XP start menus with more than 100 top level groups!) because the navigation happens within the actual menu area instead of popping up in all sorts of directions all over the screen. (Also great if you hated the start menu covering your video window while you were looking for a program. ;-)

Snipping tool: Users of OneNote already know and love this feature. It's like your Print screen key on speed: You can select a screen region, which is then copied to the clipboard and inserted into your document. The new Snipper tool does pretty much the same thing. But in addition to just copying the content, you can edit it (with highlighting tools, etc.) and then copy or save it. That's great for making presentations, blogging, or just collecting little pieces of information.

ListView navigation: This is a detail, but I still find it worth mentioning it. To jump to a certain entry in a list or tree, you could always just type the first few letters of the corresponding entry and the selection would jump there. Unless your entry happened to contain a space. In that case, hitting space would "confirm" your selection and further typing was pointless or would even move you to another entry. In Vista, this was fixed, so if you want to jump to the "Windows NT" entry and not the "Windows" entry, you can just type "Windows N" and you're at the right one. Small improvement but useful.

Network connectivity: It's a little hard to explain why and how it works, mainly because I haven't quite figured it out myself, but wherever I go, I (almost) always have network access. If you type your WEP/WPA key once, that's it, Windows will reuse it whenever appropriate, and it seems fairly smart and quick about choosing the best available network.

On XP I remember having to use the horrible IBM Connections tool, a program based on a great idea and designed for people who roam a lot, but, unfortunately, designed by people who hate stable software, intuitive user interfaces, and computer users in general. I was afraid I would have to use it again but to my surprise and big relief that wasn't the case.

Occasionally there are still network outages, but it's hard to tell whether it's really Vista's fault or just due to the usual wireless quirks. I've had to reboot at least once because Vista just refused to connect while my other PC on the same network had no problem at all. Still, a big improvement over Windows XP.

Explorer navigation: Remember what happened when you opened C:\Windows\system32 in XP's Explorer? Right, coffee break. It was impossible to work until Explorer had opened every single one of the many files to display the correct icon. Trying to navigate by typing the first letters would send the selection zigzagging through the entire folder, mostly at random and with a few seconds' delay.

The Vista Explorer does a much better job. It's far more responsive, so it seems the developers have finally put the focus on navigation and not on displaying the icons at all cost. (Don't worry, the icons are still there but they are loaded in the background.)

Unfortunately, there is not much else positive to write about the "new" Explorer. Maybe the new address bar that allows for pretty quick navigation within the parent folder structure. But I'm afraid the rest of it mostly goes into the "Bad" section and will have to wait till later.

Bottom line

The things I've listed above are by far not all the improvements that Vista's user interface introduced, but they're the ones that caught my attention in the first few weeks. I'll discuss later on whether they can make up for all the things that have become worse. And, what's a user interface without the rest of the system? So, there will be at least one article dedicated to kernel-related issues.

For reference, here's a list of links to the other parts of my Vista review:

• Windows Vista: User interface (Part 2: The Bad)
• Windows Vista: User interface (Part 3: The So-so)
• Windows Vista (Part 4: Explorer)
• Windows Vista (Part 5: Power management)