Microsoft Windows Vista Ultimate

I've deliberately given this review a 3 star rating based on my experience of the Release Candidates as an official MS Beta Tester (no one has a full retail copy yet).

One thing I would point out at the very beginning is that you should be very careful with reviews of this product simply because there are a number of people who are profoundly unable to put aside their rabid anti-Microsoft hatred to give an impartial review (see above for a prime example from a Linux zealot). As such you should take all "end user" reviews (including this one with a liberal pinch of salt).

Right now I would say that Vista is more of an investment for the future than a "must have upgrade". Since Windows XP/2000 is the dominant platform it will continue to be for some time (at least 6 months I'd wager) before Vista because mainstream.

As far as gaming goes it is widely known that DirectX 10 (Microsofts device standardisation platform) will ONLY work on Vista. This means two things - graphics cards that are DX10 compliant (the cutting edge ones will be soon) will ONLY show benefits on Vista, and games that use DX10 features will ONLY show these features when running on Vista. Is this enough reason to upgrade from XP/2000 now? Probably not, at least not until a few months after the January release. Crysis, which was billed as one of the games that will exploit DX10, has already been pushed back to the middle of 2007.

It is also worth bearing in mind that as of now whilst driver support is getting better every day there are still a number of devices with "limited support". ATI Crossfire and Nvidia SLI is - at time of writing - unsupported, and you may find that older hardware has no support at all. It would be highly advisable to check to see what driver support is available for hardware you already have installed or intend to purchase BEFORE buying Vista.

The "crazy hardware requirements" that are often billed by nay-sayers only really pertain to using the full "Aero" interface in Vista. Vista scales automatically according to the hardware you have in your system and in my experience worked just as effectively on a Pentium 4 3.0Ghz PC with a lowly FX5200 graphics card as it did on my home PC, which is considerably higher spec.

It is true that the default install of the *Release Candidate* of Vista will use around 10GB of space. This is a completely default and unoptimised install, and in any case 10GB is a trivial amount of hard disk space in most PCs, despite what anyone else may suggest.

The above said and done Vista is definitely a forward-looking progression of the Windows platform and is pleasing to use. Since Microsoft is the dominant desktop software provider it is arguably a "safe" purchase from an investment and support point-of-view. Right now however, and I suspect straight after the January launch, there is little to recommend it as an upgrade over XP/2000.

As an IT professional I have been Beta testing Windows Vista for some time. I have also been running the full business version since its release in December along with the new Office 2007. I also run and like Linux in its many flavours, for those whom may try to discredit this review, as I believe it has its place and has helped to push the development of operating systems forward, it is not for the average home user though.

Anyway back to Vista...

Installation of Windows Vista is so quick and easy compared to older versions about 20 minutes and I was logging in, even RAID arrays were initialised without the need for drivers on floppy disks. Home users should be able to install their own Windows Vista without any difficulty just check that your hardware is Vista compatible first.

Once installed the User interface is smooth and a pleasure to use, although for people who do not like change it may take a little getting used to but once you have you will find getting access to your data much easier.

Overall performance is fantastic as the system automatically adjusts itself to your hardware capabilities, although to gain the full features of the Aero interface you will require a fairly powerful system.

System diagnostics and troubleshooting are very intuitive and should benefit home users considerably, even to the point where Vista rates the hardware and shows you where your system may need improving.

Internet Explorer 7 is one area that does not feel quiet as friendly to use as the rest of the Vista although the features are good.

DirectX 10 is an area which is a little grey as the first DX10 graphics cards are only just coming on the market at around £[...] and SLI is still not supported yet however reports are positive. This does not stop you using your older graphics cards with Vista as it supports back to GeForce 5 series and equivalent cards. Also as of this time there are very few if any games on sale that support DX10.

I have given Windows Vista four stars, as nothing is perfect, but overall I am impressed with the product and would recommend it to anyone (well done Microsoft), be careful however as to which version you purchase as pricing and features are significantly different between the four retail versions, see Microsoft.com for feature comparisons.

I believe I am a relatively neutral user. I have used Windows since v1.0 (yes version 1) at work always and at home too. I bought a Mac in 1984 and have had others since. So I can't be pigeon holed as a Microsoft zealot or Mac lover, but I could be described as an early adopter.

I first installed Release Candidate 1 on my (then current) PC, a 2.2MHz P4. It loaded and recognised all the devices well however it was soon apparent that even with the Aero interface turned off it wasn't compatible with the graphics card - it left old windows on screen but just as a graphic not a live window. I was forced back to XP which cost me a lot of time.

Vista is a completely new OS to the core, Windows XP was a development on 2000/NT and has time to mature. So I would tread very carefully before paying a relatively high upgrade price or as with Win95 you may suddenly find the cost increases rapidly - if your PC is more than 3 years old I probably would recommend a new base unit at least.

I have since assembled a fairly high spec PC to enjoy RC1 properly (Core 2 Duo 6600, 7600GS graphics card, 2GB memory). Again to begin with RC1 ran fine and I was relatively impressed. The new interface takes a bit of getting used to, I did not use it long enough to learn it properly however its different but maybe not that much better - certainly its closer to the Mac in style.

However over a period of a week the installation gradually fell apart. Many of my older application simply didn't work (e.g. Microsoft Money - which is on its own now after Quicken's drop of support in the UK, my much loved WinTV USB device and other apps.) I have a a full developers version of Microsfot Office which was fine except you are faced with a mixture of styles. The Office app is XP sitting an Vista Aero window!

The Standby function just stopped working and I had to switch off and reboot on each session. I then tried to install a dual boot XP/Vista and everything fell apart!

So I have gone back to XP on my new hardware - it runs better than ever. I don't play games so this is an area I cannot comment on.

My conclusion is that you should be very careful not to run into problems. Your hardware may not support Vista. Your apps may not run on Vista and this is the most IMPORTANT point as it's why you have the PC in the first place. Of course I was only running RC1, but I shall be a lot more circumspect and check reviews before buying the actual product. I am sure that Microsoft gradually solve an issues but not so sure that all the third parties will upgrade their software versions to run on the new OS which means you will be faced with an expensive upgrade to all your apps.