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I don't understand why you people are all ranting about Vista being useless, unix being superior etc-etc... (vice versa as well)
Just take things as they are, you don't have to go spreading pointless propaganda everywhere.

Anyway, this is my take on Vista:
1) I've been using the Windows x64 platform for roughly two years now. At first it was a bit hard to find apps and drivers, but I don't see any problem now. I'm x64 all the way...
For Cd-burning Nero 7.5.7.0 works just fine, for antivirus NOD32 2.70.xx is the best.
If some occasional applications or games don't work, then to hell with them. I can live just fine with out them. I'll use stuff that do work.

2) It does seem strange that Vista takes like 10GB of HD space although there's not that much stuff in it. 500MB of RAM out of 1GB while running idle tends to be a bit on the high side, but do you remeber back when XP came out? PC-s mostly had 128 MB of RAM in them, some had 64MB, or if they were top notch then 256 MB. And yet you could run XP just fine. As time passed, memory requirements grew but so did the amount in PC-s -> mostly every good new PC tends to have 1 GB of ram in it now.
So I'd say that Vista is a bit hungry on the resource side at the moment, but in a year or two it won't be much of an issue anymore.

3) Fancy eye candy and the like -> highly required. When the OS looks good it also makes the person using it feel good. Which also adds to productivity and such. The effect is psychological and probably not so evident at first.
One of the reasons I don't like linux is that all the distros just look lame. They don't have a good default coloring scheme, the cursors, the scrollbars, the fonts and especially the X for closing an application - just horrible.
Vista on the other hand looks and behaves perfectly in every aspect in it's default form, asuming you leave out some minor "inconsistency" details.
Mac OS simply isn't my taste. If anything then it's somewhat childish, too artistic, etc.

4) Many editions of Vista -> if you have a good comparison table, then it ain't all that hard to choose the right edition (Ultimate for me ). Luckily, Microsoft has opted for such a solution, that even if you do buy say Home Premium and find out that you need a better edition. You can buy a new key (discount price) insert the Vista dvd and upgrade your machine. At least it was supposed to work something like that. Haven't seen anyone try it out yet. Wonder if it works backwards (buy Ultimate and then choose to opt in for Home Premium, will I get my money back??)

5) All those people who think that it's Vistas fault that their year old Camera or Printer or game or whatever doesn't work in Vista (but does in XP) => god, I'd like give you a good kick in the balls (assuming your male)!!! Don't you understand that it's up to the manufacturer to update their drivers and software to work with Vista, or are you just plain old stupid?!? Mind you that we had the same situation when XP came out, practically no old drivers nor games worked (they weren't supposed to anyway). It does takes time for manufactures to update their stuff you know. Vista was finalized just a couple of WEEKS ago you know!!!

6) The fact that wordpad and the fonts dialog weren't updated to fit with Vista is laziness and ignorance at it's finest (would like to kick some MS employee ass for that), but let's not forget that the power is in the people, in us! Let's make some noise, send out some e-mails to MS, get in touch with MS employees through their blogs, etc. They will listen to us sooner or later. But if we act now, we might see some needed updates with Vista SP1 or even through Windows Update!!

7) We had to wait 5-6 years for Vista. Some say it's terribly bad. I don't agree. A 5 year cycle is quite reasonable as long as Service Packs are released in every 1-1,5 years, which add new required features and updates. That way we can give time for the industry to grow, to make it's steps, to choose the next path. If you end up creating a new OS version every 2-3 years that changes the fundamentals of the OS and thus everything on top of it (drivers, games, etc) then we wouldn't be able to keep up. Would you like to relearn on which side of the road to drive every 3 years (if it were to be changed like that)??
And by the way, Mac OS isn't currently creating new OS versions, they're basically creating service packs. The thing is, that service packs usually aren't sellable so Mac has to market them as a "new" OS.

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Vista does still have some bugs in it. Even the MS employees acknowlodge it. But the shipping date was near and something had to go out the door. Vista RTM is good, but I've allready stumbled on some bugs. A wrong image, an annoyance issue with remote desktop, a bug when leaving PC running for an hour while logged off (it just hangs when you return to it), etc.
I wouldn't install Vista for corporate use currently, because it's wrinkles aren't ironed out yet. Also it wouldn't work seamlessly with Windows Server 2003 nor Small Buisness Server.
Just have to wait for "Longhorn" Server to be finalized a half a year from now. Also Vista SP1 should be rolled out somewhat at the same time.
Meaning Vista will start it's true spreading sometime in the late 2007.

I could go on with my story, but I think it's time to sum things up.
In my oppinion, Vista IS that much better than Windows XP. It WILL drive the PC world to the next level. It SHALL start a new era.
The seed has been planted, all you need to do now is give it some time, some rain and some much needed sunshine

Edited 2006-11-30 22:36