We already know that Microsoft needs to start listening to the community and hearing what they have to say. We already know that not only do they need to listen, but they need to involve the community in core decision-making processes with their software, from the very planning stages. What do we as users want out of the software? What do we want to be able to do with it? How would we, as users, actually go about doing this with said software, and what features can be added to make it easier and more enjoyable?

Two of the teams at Microsoft which have isolated themselves from this ideal are, mainly, the Windows and Office teams, and quite possibly a bit of the Windows Live team. Windows Vista, while not a disaster for me personally, was one for multitudes of people. Office 2007, while having many excellent features, was a trainwreck for the power user (Outlook 2007, anyone? No thanks…). Where are all of these complete OS/cloud integration features from Windows Live? No where to be seen.

On the flips side, there are many teams at Microsoft who do an incredible job at listening to users. The Xbox and Xbox Live teams, absolutely the Zune team, and while they’re not heard from too often, the Microsoft Research teams. They all listen to what users want out of products, what features, whether software or hardware, would benefit to the end user, and begin using their brilliant development minds to follow through on those ideas. They have us, the geeks and user advocates, to literally translate what the average end-user wants to do or has frustrations with into language that Microsoft developers and technical users can understand.

One thing that made headlines today is that Microsoft Research has opened up the Singularity project to the public for SDK and RDK use, for 100% free. If you do not know, Singularity is a very small Operating System which runs its microkernel and processes as managed code. Not only that, but it’s written in the C# language. For the non-technical users, this means it’s a completely different operating system than anything else out there both in terms of its programming and the potential it has. What Microsoft Research has done with Singularity is create a virtually uncrashable operating system with insane performance. People have been begging Microsoft to release this to the public, to technical users and developers, for over a year now. They’re finally listening.

What does this mean? It means that they’re making progress. It means that technical users can use Singularity, get down into its core, and start making suggestions to the Singularity team of how they’d like to see it improved. It means that with Microsoft’s brilliance, and our end user input, we could potentially be involved in the planning stages for a next-generation Operating System from Microsoft. Now, I’m not saying that Singularity will be the base for the next version of Windows. The Singularity developers have already states that’s not its purpose. However, with input from the community, it very well could be the case that Singularity’s ideas make it into the next version of Windows, something that would significantly help us all.

Microsoft is making progress, no matter how slow it may be. Let’s just hope it’s not too slow.

Microsoft: Please listen to the community in all areas of your software development from the very planning stages. It will benefit the end user, and ultimately, it will benefit you as a company.

As we all know, people are having issues with Windows Vista. While personally I know that these issues truly aren’t the fault of Windows itself, the world seems to want to think of it that way. Here are some tips to keeping Vista running smoothly:

• Don’t buy your computer cheap. Now, I know this doesn’t help people who already own a computer with Vista, but for anyone looking to get a new machine in the near future, my advice is to not go cheap. Ultimately, you’ll be getting bad or unstable hardware which will cause you a plethora of problems with Vista in the future. If you’re buying a desktop, I’d recommend spending at least $700 for the tower itself, not including the monitor and peripherals. This way you know you’re most likely getting higher quality hardware.
• Keep your computer clean. Don’t be installing tons of software you’re only going to use once. I personally go through my Remove Programs list once a week and uninstall anything I don’t need again. Don’t let programs launch when Windows starts up. Only open programs when you need them. If you don’t know how to turn off a program from starting up when Windows starts, there’s a great way to stop it from happening.
  1) Hit Windows + R and type “msconfig”. Hit Enter. If Windows asks you to allow, hit Allow or Continue.
  2) Go to the Startup tab and uncheck any programs you don’t need running when Windows starts up. This includes things like Adobe, MSN, AOL, Quicktime, Java, or iTunes. Be sure not to disable any Microsoft items or Antivirus/Antispyware!
• Have a computer with a dual core or quad core processor? Use it! For some strange reason, Windows will not use multiple cores when booting up the computer. Once you’re in Windows it will use them, but not during the boot process. This significantly slows things down. Here’s how you can turn on the other cores:
  1) Hit Windows + R and type “msconfig”. Hit Entier. If Windows asks you to allow, hit Allow or Continue.
  2) Go to the Boot tab and click Advanced Options. Check the “Number of Processors” box and from the drop down, select 2 or 4 or however many processors your computer has. Note that if you only have 2 cores, only 2 will be listed. If you have 4, only 4 will be listed and so forth, so chose the maximum number in this list.
• Use a good Antivirus and Antispyware program. By “good,” I mean a few things. Firstly, the detection rate needs to be high. Secondly, is it a “lightweight” program. What I mean by this is how much resources does it use on your computer? The number 1 cause of slowness on computers is not the hardware but the Antivirus program that is running in the background. Absolute no-go programs are Norton, McAfee, or AOL protection. These programs will bring your computer to an absolute crawl regardless of how powerful it is. The #1 program that I recommend is Kaspersky Internet Security. Kaspersky is a full internet protection suite protecting you against both viruses and spyware. It is extremely lightweight and runs in the background without you even knowing it’s there. Another recommendation would be Trend Micro Internet Security. I personally don’t like this as much as Kaspersky, but it is a very decent solution.
• Keep your desktop clean. Surprisingly, the number of icons you have on your desktop can affect the performance of your computer. While this isn’t as much of an issue with higher-end machines with good graphics cards, you’ll notice performance hits on lower end machines since the computer needs to re-render all of these icons every time you go back to your desktop. Folders are a Godsend. Use them.
• Useless programs, while sometimes fun, can actually hurt your computer. This includes stuff like Weather programs which keep you updated (use the Sidebar in Vista!), programs that change your mouse cursor, or toolbars for your browser. More often than not, these programs also contain high amounts of viruses and spyware. Stay away from them.
• Leave your computer on all the time. In the pre-Windows XP days, leaving your computer on 24/7 was a sin. The reason for this was that the hardware in your computer wasn’t meant to be kept running for that long. These days, the same exact hardware that’s going into enterprise-level servers is pretty much what you’ve got sitting in your computer. It can more than withstand staying on all the time. The advantage to this is huge: Windows Vista will automatically perform maintenance on the computer while its not in use, such as defragmenting the hard drive. Also, constantly shutting down/booting up your computer will effect performance of things like Superfetch as it has to not only load Windows, but commonly used applications when booting up.

So there you go. That’s my list of tips for running Windows Vista smoothly. I hope they can be of help to you.