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Many of the features and improvements mentioned in the Wikipedia article are directed to developers, and probably deserve a review of its own, done by a developer. Other changes are too abstract to put into a review, and hence have been left out. All in all this review has only touched on so many features; there are many more to be found in Windows Vista but somewhere you have to draw the line, as a reviewer. If your pet feature was excluded, feel free to explain why it should have been included in the comments section.

Conclusion

After a few weeks of intensive usage (I haven't even touched my various other machines and installations), I think I have a pretty clear picture of what Vista has become. I had my serious doubts about the system, caused not only by its many delays, but more so by the highly debatable quality of the many test builds released by Microsoft in the past years.

When I first tested what was then called Longhorn back in 2003, I wrote a review of it for OSNews. The final line of that review read: "People might say that this release is just XP with a new coat. They are completely right, in my opinion. But darn, that new coat looks nice." That line is completely misplaced for this final build of Vista, no matter how much anti-Microsoft folk who never used Vista in the first place want you to believe. Vista is a huge step forward for the Windows world.

How does Vista stack up compared to its competition, most notably, Mac OS X? Well, feature-wise, they are pretty much on-par, if you ask me. Stability- wise, XP was already on par with OS X, and left little to improve upon. In the looks department, it all depends on your taste, of course. I like the Glass theme better than I like the Aqua look, but that is so totally personal it is irrelevant for this discussion. Security-wise; now that is where only time will tell. On paper, they seem to be on par, but theory is always different from practice. When it comes to personality, I would still say the Mac has the advantage - clearly.

In total, Vista is a pretty convincing argument for buyers of computers to stick to the Windows side of the pond. Assuming the security will turn out to be as good in the real world as it is on paper, Vista will enable buyers to stick with what they know, using all the same applications they are used to, but all in a much better interface and many other features many users will certainly appreciate.

All in all, I am impressed by Windows Vista, and I will surely move my two Windows installations to Vista (obviously leaving the XP partitions in tact). Windows Vista is better than XP, and definitely more than just an improved look as many say.