Vista

Two weeks after the consumer release its probably time I posted some form of comment on Vista...

I upgraded to Vista on the weekend of the 3rd of February and I've been using it 'in anger' ever since. I'd previously installed some of the test releases so I knew what to expect but this was my first chance to have the full Vista experience including the much vaunted aero theme.

I have to say that I'm impressed, it is a definite improvement over Windows XP, in spite of the much criticised user account control feature. In truth I don't have a big problem with user account control (now that my system is stable and most of my applications are installed), its no worse than a personal firewall product popping up a message asking to allow this or that behaviour.

There isn't really any single improvement which I'd say makes Vista a 'must' upgrade, in reality if you're running XP sp2 then there's no real reason to change (unless you want to that is). But there are lots of improvements which as a whole add up to a system which is much better than XP, I particularly like the new 'breadcrumbs' feature in Windows Explorer.

So if you fancy upgrading, go for it, I'm sure that like me you'll not want to go back! But I do have one proviso - check your system for compatibility, I've had to accept that a couple of my older peripherals (a scanner for one) have to be retired as there aren't any drivers for them...