Back in June, Microsoft let users interested in Office 2007 test drive the software online. They set up a simulation so that you could test each of the individual products and get a feel for what it was like . It was a pretty realistic test-drive that gave users a good idea of what to expect if they were to purchase Office 2007. Just recently, Microsoft has setup something similar so that users can participate in a Windows Vista Business Test Drive. Just like Office, it requires that you use Internet Explorer because it has to install an ActiveX plug-in.
Because their Office 2007 test drive was pretty impressive, I was expecting the same from this Vista version. Unfortunately, it was a huge disappointment. If you’re using it to determine whether to purchase the product or not, you’ll probably be disappointed as well. This same kind of site could have been created using html or JavaScript so that the ActiveX plug-in wasn’t required. It definitely could have been designed with Flash so that any browser could be used. When you hover over the Start Menu, you’d think that it would display what the new start menu looks like, right? Wrong, it doesn’t! Most of the items in the Taskbar only open up pop-up windows.
It was a huge disappointment and does not give someone who is totally unfamiliar with Vista any kind of idea of what to expect. You can check it out for yourself at www.windowsvistatestdrive.com . Remember that you’ll need to open up Internet Explorer to use this.
News Source: ActiveWin
Says they are updating the site.
Interesting…they must have just done that. I sure hope that they plan on actually making it a “test drive” experience rather than a normal website with some eye candy.
It works better now? I tried in IE and after I click on something, a pop-up comes up. In the pop-up there’s a Test Drive button. When I click that, it loads for a short time, and then it brings up a desktop. The Start Menu seems like the full menu, I can click right ALT-DEL (like ALT-CTRL-DEL, but only in the test drive) to lock the computer and stuff. The Recycle Bin opens. It’s just a bit laggy for me, but it’s there.
It looks like they’ve made some changes. Now the Start Menu does display, but it would have been nice if they did something more. I would expect it to look like the real Vista start menu, even if it weren’t fully functional. For example, Vista has the search bar in the menu– they could have incorporated that and made it search Microsoft’s website, just to give people an idea of what it would do.
It is too complicated to create such interactive application using HTML, CSS and JavaScript (AJAX). Because it is a temporary promotional website. Also because they just don’t know there are other browsers in the world besides IE
But it is possible to create it using Flash or Java. But I think, Microsoft developers are not experienced in Java and Flash
The original design would have been decently easy to do in JavaScript because it really only consisted of pop-up windows, but the new design that they just launched (as mentioned in the comments) would be a little more difficult to do. You’re right though…they probably don’t have many Flash programmers.