So far, I miss the little things.

File Explorer lacks an 'up folder (..)' button. This one is really irritating. Oh yes, backspace does it, but once my hand is on the mouse, I want to keep it there.

Also in File Explorer: files or folders with focus aren't clear to me (it's the same light blue that you get when you mouse-over). I feel like I have to be very careful before I go to move/cut/copy/delete anything using the GUI.

Security in places: It's a total PITA to edit the hosts file. At first I thought my editor (not notepad) wasn't Vista compatable, until I found a kbase article on how to edit the hosts file. Sheez.

UAC: Ok, it's better than nothing, but its still a nuisance and will probably get ignored quickly by most users. It reminds me of how bad Zone Alarm was the last time I tried it.

We're running Office 2007 in a trial group now, and for me, it's a bigger change and a bigger improvement over 2003 than Vista is over XP.

Well i have missed a few small things like not have easy access to Folder options to view hidden files... but i figured out how to do after a quick search on the net.

apart from that i pretty much enjoy most of it. i like the navigation using the new style in the address bar in File Explorer.

sleep mode is very handy to have. i use the laptop to watch my fav sitcom on my way to work everyday and wake up from sleep is a breeze... lot more power options...

i like the sidebar... well i know that it was invented by Konfabulator and then nicked by Apple and then nicked by MS but its a tough world... btw..i submitted my first sidebar gadget today on windows live gadgets gallery...

like custom sized screen shots and SnipIT is a good tool... always hated having to print screen and then resize the screen shot in mspaint or in paintshop pro

I hope to see some good Ultimate extras in near future

I got Vista off MSDN and haven't had any crashes. Stability has been quite good. Perf seems ok. For me the question is, WHERE ARE THE DRIVERS? ATI and NVIDIA need to get off their arses and release some quality Vista drivers. Sound card drivers seem to be very hit and miss, but the worst offender is the trackpad for my laptop. I HATE tapping on trackpads and want to turn it off, but there's no driver. Aargh.

Hey...
The up folder thing is accomplished by clicking the parent folder's name in the Address Bar of Explorer... it can be pretty neat... but a button would be nice too. Maybe you can add it?

What I think about Vista:
I miss the little things too... like DRIVERS! Wow... I have a Tablet PC from Fujitsu and literally have only 50% of the expected built in tablet experience working. The Toshiba BT drivers and management utils are "unsafe" the buttons and docking software from Fujitsu are unsafe. Plus the Vista ones won't work. I have a 4020D Lifebook T... what was the high-end last year. I had to find the ALPS Touchpad driver from Dell so that it wouldn't be blocked each boot-up.

Another annoyance is that Intel's most popular graphics chip for portable computers (the 915GMS) is not Aero enabled. It was in early betas, but a lot of laptop users are out in the cold.

The troubles that I have are "lazy" hardware vendors I guess. Vista doesn't appear to be a priority to Fujitsu or Intel right now. It seems strange that a tablet PC vendor wouldn't try to make Vista the best possible experience.

Technically, the drivers aren't Microsoft's fault... however, I am finding that I have to run a lot of applications that I rely on (small utilities) as XP SP2 Compatibility mode or as Administrator.

Vista is snappier than XP for me. Office 2007 really flies, and that's great. I beta tested Office for over a year, so it's a huge improvement.

Mobile Device Sync is still beta 3. It seems to work OK except if you make Notes in your device that contain big files like audio notes. These stop the sync with an error. It's the same issue with ActiveSync 4.5 Beta. That will get resolved. The sync experience is OK, but the Mobile Device Center and the Sync panel are 2 different UI's. So sometimes you need one app (for file sync) and other times you need the other for ActiveSync type stuff.

Power management is improved in Vista, however due to Fujitsu's driver situation, my ACPI drivers do not always allow me successfully hibernate. So, that hampers my tablet use cases. However, Vista does start up and shut down quickly enough to make it a more minor nuisance. Vista does seem to get slightly better battery life than XP on the "Balanced" power plan. It effects the CPU, and also can effect the wireless power (I think), so that's nice.

Basically I want my drivers. I have a USB stick TV Tuner from Pinnacle that isn't well supported in Vista yet, but am excited to get their Vista drivers so I can have the Ultimate Vista experience on my tablet.

TTFN

My Vista experience is near excellent. Notebook has been very reliable and fast. Memory size of 1GB (shared by integrated graphics) is sufficient. There's very little software that isn't compatible. I've had to switch online backup service to Carbonite as virtually all others services are not Vista compatible.

Driver support is very good on my Dell E1505 Core (2) Duo notebooks. Dell Bluetooth 355 (2.0 and EDR) seems to be more compatible than Dell 350 although not fully robust.

Performance and battery life is very good with Vista.
Agreeing with other postwers, I'd like a "up directory level" button. Sleep mode is a great enhancement.

I have not used Vista, but this is on topic:
I just received a developers' update from Intuit which states QuickBooks 2006 and earlier are unstable on Vista, even running under XP compatibility modes (some problem with inter-application communication, they think).
It would be very interesting to see a list of apps known not to run under Vista (as opposed to those where upgrades are just "recommended" to boost sales).

In terms of apps that don't work, the only apps that I've found that don't work are CD burning software. I had to update those for Vista.

Here are some apps that have issues:
Alps Touchpad driver management software (fixed by Dell, not Fujitsu who makes my tablet)

Toshiba Bluetooth Stack (OEM'd by Fujitsu)

TrafficGauge utility (http://www.trafficgauge.com - writes files in problematic places I guess)

Pinnacle MediaCenter software and drivers (may update in 02/07) - XP driver totally confuses Vista Media Center, will only see the ATSC tuner, not the NTSC tuner... gives a garbled picture with extreme CPU usage

Hamachi personal VPN (runs as administrator, needs driver signing and certification by Microsoft - not Hamachi's fault... will not run on x64)

Trillian sort of works, sometimes behaves funny though

All Fujitsu's Tablet PC software and drivers are eff'd... miserable tablet experience. Vista even blocks loading the ACPI drivers due to compatibility issues.

Also, another minor annoyance:
I use a 2 desktop configuration at my desk. My Tablet is 1400x1050, my other screen is 1680x1050. Wy desktop wallpaper is sized to overshoot my tablet screen and fit on my 16:9 screen. Vista shrinks it to 1400k1050 on both screens... XP did not. It's a nice picture too! :-/

So, maybe that's an unusual list of software... but I was surprised at the amount of "Run as Administrator" and "XP SP2 Compatibility" apps I was having to run. Hope it will change soon!

TTFN

Here are some apps that have issues:
Alps Touchpad driver management software (fixed by Dell, not Fujitsu who makes my tablet)

Toshiba Bluetooth Stack (OEM'd by Fujitsu)

TrafficGauge utility (http://www.trafficgauge.com - writes files in problematic places I guess)

Pinnacle MediaCenter software and drivers (may update in 02/07) - XP driver totally confuses Vista Media Center, will only see the ATSC tuner, not the NTSC tuner... gives a garbled picture with extreme CPU usage

Hamachi personal VPN (runs as administrator, needs driver signing and certification by Microsoft - not Hamachi's fault... will not run on x64)

Trillian sort of works, sometimes behaves funny though

All Fujitsu's Tablet PC software and drivers are eff'd... miserable tablet experience. Vista even blocks loading the ACPI drivers due to compatibility issues.

Oh, and Cisco's MeetingPlace software totally doesn't work in IE 7 in Vista. Could be an IE 7 thing... Settings are all named differently.

Also, another minor annoyance:
I use a 2 desktop configuration at my desk. My Tablet is 1400x1050, my other screen is 1680x1050. Wy desktop wallpaper is sized to overshoot my tablet screen and fit on my 16:9 screen. Vista shrinks it to 1400k1050 on both screens... XP did not. It's a nice picture too! :-/

So, maybe that's an unusual list of software... but I was surprised at the amount of "Run as Administrator" and "XP SP2 Compatibility" apps I was having to run. Hope it will change soon!

TTFN

Vista technically and practically lags behind Mac OS X in specific areas:

1. Pro Audio and music production. DirectSound and DirectMusic are too obsolete. No match for Core Audio.
2. Video, Broadcast media creation. DirectShow although great isn't for media creation nor is developer friendly and Microsoft limits you to Windows Media, doesn't support important standards like MPEG-4.
3. Rich Typography seems to be only just introduced with WPF Text engine, but there's no app to take advantage of it. We're stuck with WordPad. Not a single product from MS fully supports their own OpenType specification.
4. Color management (but they may catch up with Windows Color System)
5. Text to Speech. MS Anna is still not that natural. And why should we get just one English voice?
6. Automation and Scripting. Scripting is only for developers, no way for extensive system automation for end/casual users. Compare that with AppleScript and Automator.

No wonder creative pros and media professionals are flocking to Macs.

There is not a compelling reason to upgrade to Vista and it just doesn't perform as well as XP. Good thing I backed up before I upgraded (Don't even attempt to VM Vista - dog slow)... Save your money and get more done with XP or Mac OS X.

Vista looks good and feels good. It seems to be a lot more rounded up than XP.
Is Vista ready for me? No! Because to this date there are no working drivers for some of my hardware, i.e. mouse and soundcard. There seems to be also no working third party firewall for Vista so far.
Otherwise I would have already switched to it but these missing drivers/software keeping me from it.
There is one thing that I would add to the list of missing features mentioned above and that is Font Management! It seems nothing has been changed about it. Either Fonts are installed or not, no dynamic font management.

For Rob S and other users with problems with Drivers:
* For touchpad drivers look at the manufacturer. http://www.synaptics.com/ manufacture touchpad for a lot of big names and you can download vista drivers off their site.

* For sound drivers: If you have a realtek AC 97 or Hi Def, go to realtek website and download Vista Drivers. They work.. i have tried it on Vista x86 and Vista x64.

nope..i havent used it..wt exactly is that..

REgards
anil

http://www.errorforum.com

@Hermit: I'm using a Logitech MX310 Mouse and a M-Audio Audiophile (pro audio production) soundcard. Both manufacturers couldn't be bother to provide Vista drivers so far. Sad story!
Sure I could use the WinVista Generic Mouse Driver but then the mouse is slower as what I'm used to as the Logitech Driver uses the higher resolution of the mouse. I could also use the On-Board SoundChip but why would I have to if I could use a 6ms Latency SoundCard?!

@Frank: I can imagine the issues you have.. I at one point installed XP64... got all but printer driver installed and then i rolled by to XP x86 just because having a printer was important to me.

I unfortunately use a simple MS optical mouse. The only fancy thing on it is the wheel and thats about the only feature i wanted... though i believe its a very personal choice... i have seen some very customisable mice out there.

On the desktop side i use Vista x64 and i have to use stock drivers for nvidia chipset as they can't seem to get their fingers out :).. i was lucky that both the laptop and the desktop use realtek and realtek have published Vista Drivers which work.

It is annoying that NVidia have taken this long considering they have beta drivers for RC1. Hopefully they are gearing up for Consumer release. The earlier release was business release and i don't know of any businesses that use nvidia chipsets :)

I've used it for a few weeks now. I am happy to say it runs smoothly and Aero is pretty cool. However, driver support is lacking. HP has NO,ZERO Vista driver support, so I can't print. Micrsoft's own Lifecam will not work in Vista as of yet. And Nvidia drivers are still in Beta. So, Vista as an O/S is great. Driver support is poor.

I have Vista on two computers.While it runs with out problems driver support sucks. I can not print on eather my HP printer or my Brother. No Nvidia drivers for my main computer.motherboard or vidio card. Finding software that works is still hit or miss. Beta antivirus only.

I have been using Vista for quite sometime now; right from Betas to RTM. I do find the OS user friendly and pleasant to work on but the lack of drivers is a big hitch. My HP scanjet, web camera, Ati graphic card have been rendered useless since my transition from XP to Vista.
One major drawback in using Vista is complete lack of software support to enable all important Ad blocking. No anti-virus program supported by this OS has this capability, not even Live Onecare.
I hate ads hogging my bandwidth and the annoyance they cause, especially when you are used to totally eliminating them with Norton Internet Security on XP!

Have been using Vista from past two weeks.... PRETTY COOOL!!! I will select it to XP cause Vista has a more user-friendly and captivating look... I got 100% of the drivers loaded by setting the compatibility of the files to - 'Windows XP Service Pack 2'. Had to do it to some software such as omnipass to for my Fujitsu T4210. Its a tedious process, but I am not complaining... Only problem I am facing is with the display drivers... Intel Drivers are CRAP!!! Due to which I get the bluescreen everytime I shutdown or restart... Will find a way soon and Post :)... Till then... Take care... HAPPY VISTAING... !!! :D.

I've been using Vista for a couple of weeks now and really like it.
Sadly though it's a bit let down by my hardware... Sony don't have Vista drivers (or software) for my month old Vaio (and no news when/if they will) and my Logitech USB headset seems to send spurious keystrokes!
IMO Vista at only a couple of hundred bucks is a worthwhile upgrade (especially coupled with Office 2007) - while it's arguable that a lot of the changes are incremental and "not enough" people said the same about WinXP yet as the updates and service packs rolled out we suddenly discovered the value of the architecture changes - I suspect the same will be true with Vista.
The Apple fanboys who are busy insulting Vista should remember that Apple charges them for a minor upgrade every year, Microsoft do a major replenish much further apart and reward us with patches and service packs on a monthly basis!

I am running Vista Business RTM and it is great; solid thusfar and I have a knack to break OS's pretty darn quickly. Congrats to Microsoft.

Drivers (and I don't mean the guy sitting in front of Ms Daisy) are a huge pain in the rear... It's 2 hours from official release, and I still don't have MB drivers for my Intel 975 board... (SImage RAID not natively supported) or drivers for my Creative Audigy ZS 2 sound card. Vista reminds me of 'the sounds of silence' at the moment. Also, my capture card from Pinnacle came with PMC v3, now they say PMC v4.5 will be Vista compliant, but my v3 serial will not work with v4. Does that mean I must buy drivers for the capture card? Capitalism within the big corporates is rife!

Only Nvidia has released drivers for my video card, so at least that's working. Well done Nvidia.

For those who miss the "up one directory level" button, you can use ALT+UP ARROW instead.

There's a one page PDF of other Vista keyboard shortcuts at www.Vistoid.com

I'm using Vista 32bit Business RTM on my latitude D420 laptop. It takes way lot time to fully boot up, but once it is booted completely, it isn't that slow. Sometimes I have to force it to power off by holding the power button for 5 secs. It doesn't turn off sometimes. Sometimes when I try to put it to sleep mode, the screen turns off, but the power doesn't, and it just freezes like that. Don't know why, but I havn't installed any drivers, just used the generic drivers from microsoft updates. I hope it is just a problem of the drivers that will be fixed by dell sooner or later. My bluetooth 350 doesn't work properly with headsets, nor with my cell phone. It asks for a driver, when I try to pair the devices. I do like the interface so I'll keep on using it.

Vista sucks bad. It won't run anything. Bill Gates needs to be horsewhipped.

Vista sucks bad. It won't run anything. Bill Gates needs to be horsewhipped.