Sounds like a few new features, would you pay for it if you already had Vista though?
Does it have DX10.1 or DX11?
It looks like just directx 10 so far
I have hated WMP since the beginning, I doubt this will change my mind. Does it actually support every format out of the box yet? If not I will stick with VLC.
I have to yet to find something that hasn't played (though so far I've only tried various videos and mp3's)
To be honest, for me to consider interface a very good feature it has to be efficient in my mind. I think that interfaces can indeed be a deal breaker with certain technologies. I don't like a start menu and haven't since I discovered docks. I know there are third party docks with Windows, but I don't like putting third party apps like that on my system, to have them be exploited and turned into spyware or malware.
Well I guess that part is a matter of personal preference, I like the start menu. I don't know how efficient the new taskbar would be for you specifically, but I can gaurantee it would be just as efficient, if not more so than the old taskbar.
So, everything can be accessed from a right click menu now?
This is right click on desktop
You mean like symbolic links to the actual resources?
No, you choose which folders you want to participate in the different categories (music, pictures, etc.) and they will all appear in the libraries, where you can do what you want to them. It's kinda like shortcuts, but instead of links to the files, it shows you the actual files.
Firefox for the win, sorry IE is not even considered a feature by me any more.
I use firefox as well, though I figured it was worth mentioning
Again, interface features can be deal breakers if they are done right, what exactly is shake?
Grab a window and shake it, and all the open windows will minimize, except for the one you just shook. It's actually pretty useful.
Sounds like expose' for OS X.
Nope, not at all. Drag a window to the left and it will resize to the left half of the screen. Same thing for the right.
When you drag to the top, it maximizes the windows. This also works the opposite way, effectively allowing you to drag things out of a maximized state, which is damn useful.
So, WMP does play everything out of the box now?
I don't believe this has anything to do with wmp, but the actual codecs built into windows. wmp just benefits from it I guess. But yeah, so far I have yet to find something that doesn't play. Granted I need to test this further.
EDIT: Tested with MPEG-4 files now, they work just fine. flac however does not play, though I'm not too surprised.