Behind the Scenes of the Windows Vista Sound Schemes

re: Behind the Scenes of the Windows Vista Sound Schemes

landho — Mon, 10 Nov 2008 17:42:42 GMT

I am a partially sited person.

Would someone make a 3rd party application to sound an auditory alarm for low battery? This would indeed be very helpful!

Is MS planning on making one in the very near furure?

Does any one know of one or where there is one an already made?

Thank you

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re: Behind the Scenes of the Windows Vista Sound Schemes

mtmama47 — Mon, 22 Sep 2008 12:20:50 GMT

I need help. I purchase a Tosbia A205 notebook with Vista Home Edition and I have dialup and cant not connect. Notebook sent back to Tosbia and they put in a new modeum and still and connect with Vista. Also have a HP notebook with XP and have no problems getting online. IS there anyone that can help me before I sent the Tosbia back. Have had my Tosiba since July 14th and cant use it. Please Help.

re: Behind the Scenes of the Windows Vista Sound Schemes

Kayti — Sat, 26 Jul 2008 20:38:31 GMT

I am not sure I am in the right blog. I have a question about Volume Mixer. I recently installed Sprint's Smart Card Novatel for wireless access on my computer. Ever since then I have been unable to hear the audio on any other media program -- including Windows Media Player. I look in sound and devices and everything appears to be active -- nothing is muted, and yet I cannot hear anything through my headphones or speakers on the computer. When I look at the volume mixer it has an Sprint Mobile Broadband Connection Manager as one of the applications. Do you have any ideas? Do I just need to get rid of this product and uninstall everything associated with it? I would really like to be able to use wireless, but more importantly I need audio, as I use this for my work and I am losing money fast.

Any help you can provide would be appreciated

re: Behind the Scenes of the Windows Vista Sound Schemes

Superpotato — Fri, 25 Jul 2008 09:35:55 GMT

Evan, it's not that you won't need to change the hardware, you'll probably have no choice with Apple's limited cookie cutter options.

Some of us do more than just browse the internet and Apple's limited choice of hardware with pathetic GPUs and stupidly limited upgrade path do not cut it with a lot of people in the real world. You'll be better off with Linux if you don't want Windows.

re: Behind the Scenes of the Windows Vista Sound Schemes

evan — Thu, 24 Jul 2008 01:17:10 GMT

Windows and It's Sounds!!!

It's annoying to put up with a log on sound, shut down sound, boot sound, not too mention their aero design that slows down so many computers it's not funny. My Apple Imac runs awesome and makes one short sound starting up-not a song like windows. The only logon sound i liked was in windows 2000 (my favorite windows operating system). I gave away my vista laptop because i cant buy XP to put it on anymore.- short and simple, Windows is inferior to a Mac and windows steals so many apple designs it's not even funny. Like Apple's Front Row was ripped off with Media Center which personally sucks. My advice-Get a Mac- you'll never have to change your hardware for like five years

re: Behind the Scenes of the Windows Vista Sound Schemes

Marchy — Wed, 23 Jul 2008 17:16:15 GMT

I just wanted to give a well-deserved praise to an effort that has created a touch of quality and attention that is subtle yet exquisite. I completely appreciate the insight into how the new sound schemes came to be and found the process extremely interesting. I thought the sounds were superbly chosen when I listened to them to begin with, but seeing the depth of attention that went into creating something that is functionally absent yet esthetically polished showcased an attention to detail that gives me as a consumer refined hope into the future of the Windows platform as a whole.

It shows me that at least SOME people at Microsoft are finally getting what a good user experience is all about, and are moreover willing to put resources and time into pursuing that direction. Not everything in life is about an optimization of functionality and in fact most things are very far from it. It is this very attention to detail that separates a BWM from a Suzuki, or an Apple from an anything-else. I am very glad to see this level of understanding being exerted within Microsoft and the teams involved have my commendment to continue to pursue and push for this level of detail in other areas of the OS. Quite frankly, this sound scheme story should be an example and inspiration to all of the MS teams internally and I encourage you to get the vision across to those who have the ability to share it in other places of the company as well.

Thanks for putting a very crafted touch to advancing the intangible quality of Vista's interface. For those of us who appreciate it, we appreciated it well.

As for the Ultimate Extras program, bring on the power-toys suggestion that was mentioned earlier with amazingly-useful things such as virtual desktops, mouse gestures, saving & restoring the desktop state across shutdowns, integrated file-diffing, etc. Windows badly needs to bring such basic advancements to the general consumer's toolset in order to support & promote the ad-hoc multi-tasking and task-centric workflow that allows us to extend our uses of computers as modern users. I can't even work on a non-virtual desktop machine. Or shall we say, I can't work on more than two/three long-running tasks at once? My advance thanks for passing these messages on to the right people involved.

re: Behind the Scenes of the Windows Vista Sound Schemes

rakhi — Mon, 21 Jul 2008 12:45:31 GMT

Widows vista are the new generation windows. It is having many sophisticated characteristics than today's computer. Many new technologies are embedded in vista. It is hardly to get worked with vista. Anyone knows more about it, please let me know.

=======================================

Rakhi

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re: Behind the Scenes of the Windows Vista Sound Schemes

legion721 — Wed, 16 Jul 2008 09:27:15 GMT

I can appreciate all the work behind Vista, however; as a consumer I am frustrated by MS's deployment of an OS which is so unstable so as to make it vitually unusable. I am using SP1 and it is worthless...constantly fails to run MS's own programs. Didn't anyone at MS think about their reputation in deploying an OS that never has been stable? I venture to say it couldn't have ever worked even on the test bench as a stable operating platform.

When is MS going to step up and fix the 100's of problems? This is seriously making me go to MAC from now on. I just can't justify using anymore MS products until they follow through on their customer's justified complaints. If I bought a car which ran this bad it would be covered under the Lemon law, maybe we need congress to pass such a law to force MS to step up and operate on a professional level. I am out the cost of the OS and no hope of ever seeing this get fixed as everyone seems to be working on periferals and not the base code.

re: Behind the Scenes of the Windows Vista Sound Schemes

fredclown — Mon, 30 Jun 2008 17:14:04 GMT

Brandon

I think we all realize that this post is not about Extras in general but about the sound schemes. However, where else would you like people to express their frustrations over the lack of useful extras? This is one of the first posts in a long time that are even remotely related to Vista Extras. We have been promised multiple times news on extras that have never been fulfilled. So, put yourself in the shoes of the customer for a second and try and understand the frustration. I realize for you folks that it is frustrating to create something and have it not get the praise it deserves, but Microsoft has really put itself in this place by promising what it cannot deliver.

re: Behind the Scenes of the Windows Vista Sound Schemes

alamfour — Tue, 24 Jun 2008 06:44:09 GMT

Hi all,

I am a user of Windows Vista Ultimate and I like the idea behind Ultimate Extra's. However the Ultimate extra's seem to be lacking at the moment. Maybe we need something like windows xp powertoys (or something along those lines) like virtual desktops for example. Anyhow Vista is great in general. BRING ON WINDOWS 7 AND KICK MAC OF THE SCENE!!!!!

re: Behind the Scenes of the Windows Vista Sound Schemes

Superpotato — Sat, 21 Jun 2008 14:01:31 GMT

I do feel that a lot of these ugliness is coming from frustration of what is perceived to be an inferior OS.

Vista has had issues with compatibility and performance, sometimes to the point of being unusable and only after much patching and updating, Vista is now shaping up as a viable option (although I still find myself installing XP back on since Vista's gaming performance is pretty woeful even with a 9800gtx and a 3Ghz core duo).

However, XP still is, for most, a far better and sensible option as the "benefits" of Vista Ultimate are simply not apparent. Considering the price payed for a copy of Vista Ultimate edition and the so far rather lackluster extras, some people are feeling ripped off.

re: Behind the Scenes of the Windows Vista Sound Schemes

Rizenfenix — Sat, 21 Jun 2008 08:35:04 GMT

mysterydude2020 & Ceintech,

With all due respect, I believe you’re missing the bigger picture here. If a person bought Vista Ultimate for the "Extras" then you bought Vista Ultimate for the wrong reasons. It would be akin to buying an industrial-sized lawn mower when your lawn resembles a postage stamp, and your reasoning behind doing so was for the 100 dollar mail in rebate. The Vista Ultimate experience was advertised by Microsoft since day one as a comprehensive package, i.e. gaming/entertainment, mobility, security, etc. (the list is quite extensive), not to mention its 64-bit support.

If a person were looking for a "free" operating system to utilize on multiple computers, then maybe he or she should consider Ubuntu or other Linux or Linux based solutions, which are absolute viable alternatives. I support the Ubuntu community with a much passion as I do the Microsoft community, so don’t believe for a second that I am a Microsoft zealot…

Listen, the bottom-line is that Mr. LeBlanc is absolutely correct in his analysis and explanation of the processes that Microsoft engineers and contributors go through in providing a product as seemingly simple as a sound pack. It isn't simply thrown out to the public, but goes through a gauntlet of RD that, believe it or not, costs money. Regardless of your opinions to the contrary, Microsoft has put out a superior operating system, which is the inevitable vehicle to Windows 7 in the same way XP was superior and an inevitable segway from Windows 2000/ME.

I have seen some really ugly comments on this site and none of them are constructive or favorable to a better product, which is what we ALL want regardless if it's from Microsoft, Linux, or Apple. Regardless, I have seen people @ Microsoft, such as Mr. LeBlanc, Mr. Flores and Mr. White, go to extreme measures under the ugliest of circumstances to help people who I thought simply needed to be banned. I suppose all I am saying is let’s help them (Microsoft and others) by doing our part and being constructive in our praises and criticisms alike.

re: Behind the Scenes of the Windows Vista Sound Schemes

Brandon LeBlanc — Fri, 20 Jun 2008 21:23:01 GMT

Ceinach, totally understand where you're coming from on Ultimate Extras but this post isn't really about Ultimate Extras rather simply about the sound schemes by themselves. This post in no way highlights anything regarding "the future of the 'Extras' program".

There are new sound schemes available for Windows Vista as Ultimate Extras for Ultimate users but again this post was designed to give a back story to the sound schemes themselves in the general terms. You feedback overall is great appreciated and has been relayed to folks at Microsoft of course - just as your previous comments have - oh and its nice to see you around :-).

On another point of yours - sure you can get free sound schemes off the internet but again if you read the above post - the sound schemes that Microsoft has shipped for Windows Vista go through much more "design" than what you get with just any old sound scheme. The sound schemes in Windows are designed and developed in a very unique way as Steve Ball explains above with quality in mind. Just like features in Windows - the sound schemes also go through "design" as well. I don't know about you but I find that incredibly neat.

Thanks,

Brandon

re: Behind the Scenes of the Windows Vista Sound Schemes

Ceinach — Fri, 20 Jun 2008 19:40:43 GMT

Is this seriously the only future to the "Extras" program? Should we just resign ourselves to the fact that sound schemes and other useless utilities that can be obtained for free all over the Internet are what we paid extra for? Can Microsoft be honest with us for once?

Does Microsoft really feel that people are getting their money out of this program? We are now paying extra for sound schemes and language packs - all of which are delivered late to boot?

In a way, I can see many of the points mentioned above - we all feel ripped off by the "Extras" mystery, problems with Vista still haven't been addressed properly - even when those responses have been promised as "coming soon", and Microsoft seems to be absolutley fine with all of this.

To summarize - the sound schemes are great. They actually do sound pretty good, but don't kid yourselves - This Extras issue is still a compete debacle on Microsoft's part.