More often than not, after some time spent using Windows Vista, you will notice that it provides many features of other OSes, sometimes even more powerful. However they happen to be difficult to discover, or downright hidden (on purpose?).
One feature that comes immediately to mind is Previous Revisions (based on the Shadow Copy service), which in some ways may be compared to Mac OS X Leopard Time Machine. We will get back to that greatly undervalued feature of Windows Vista in a future post.
But here is (so far) the most hidden piece of UI I have seen in Windows Vista. It is so unobvious that I even thought that the feature that previously was available in Windows XP had actually been removed (in XP it was already kind of unobvious already); the feature in question is the Virtual Private Network (VPN) server.
Actually, not that many people know that it is possible to define an incoming connection in Windows XP that uses the PPTP protocol (port 1723). Other computers may then connect to that VPN securely over the Internet (for example, using the built-in PPTP client built into Windows XP or Vista).
So this is how you create a new incoming VPN connection in Vista:
- Go to the Network and Sharing Center
- Click Manage network connections
Now, this is where it should have been obvious. Look at the list of network connections, and at the list of available options. Do you see it?
No.
But it is right there. What you have to do is hit the Alt key to make the menu bar appear (it is hidden by default), and then open the File menu. Do you see it now?
- Click File / New Incoming Connection...
and there you go! What is really bad in this is that:
- it should really be possible to create a new incoming connection by clicking Set up a connection or network in the Network and Sharing Center
- the command to create a new incoming connection should not (only) be a menu item, but should also be available as a text link or a toolbar button.
Why did they hide it so well?
1 comment:
Good article omniguy.
Hate to be a fanboy but this article highlights something I've noticed that I like about Mac OS.
Windows Vista tries to make the apps look cool by ditching the staid, tired old menu bar. In Office 2007 they do a good job because the replace it with something better.
But in other apps - many of which you can use on XP too, but have that Vista Look (Windows Live Messenger, Media Player, etc) - they just hide it altogether and you have to go looking.
On Mac OS, the System menu bar is always there. Always ready to be used. It's part of the system, not so much the application. So you can (and Mac developers certainly do) make the apps look cool while still keeping the functionality of the menu bar.
Okay, /fanboyism
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