I’ve had my new Vista machine for awhile and haven't gotten around to writing down my impressions until now. Initially I really liked Vista. Some of the detail work (which I’ll describe later) was well thought out and did save me time in standard operation. UAC was hardly an issue after I got everything configured, and now it appears only at expected times, such as installing new programs. But as I continued to use my machine, a frustrating problem started - sometimes my machine would freeze. I repeatedly searched for solutions online, but none of the described scenarios were exactly like mine. The freezes started when I created a new directory through a file browse dialog. It wouldn’t happen every time but eventually the freezes increased in frequency and had no obvious trigger. At its peak, my computer would barely run for ten minutes before freezing on its own. During each freeze the mouse cursor was fine, which tells me Windows was still there, but the task bar froze and all active windows would slowly change to non-responding windows (I could do some limited alt-tabbing around for a short while). I tried a variety of solutions from updating drivers to various tweaks but nothing helped. Eventually the freezes mysteriously disappeared. I’m really not sure why – my best guess is Windows Update pulled down a fix since problems don't just disappear magically. I was eagerly hoping this would happen, and if this is indeed the case, I’m pleased. I bought this machine to keep my skills up to date with new Microsoft technology (from Vista to the new Office to all manner of exciting stuff happening in the .NET world) and now that it's purring, I'm quite happy.

Some of the detail work I love:

• Visual appearance overall is pleasant. I like Aero Glass and the general look/feel of Vista.
• I love that user directories are now under C:\Users (so mine is C:\Users\Jeff). I always dodged the "My Documents" folder on Windows XP (as a user) but I find myself organizing much more under my user directory on Vista than I ever did on XP.
• The file extension isn’t highlighted when renaming a file in Explorer. How many times did we have to de-select the extension in previous Windows versions?
• The central window that appears when you hold down Alt while Alt-Tabbing lets you use the mouse to select a specific window. This is such a time saver when you want to go to one of many windows, and the way I work, I have many, many windows open.
• Flip 3D is really nice and I love that the windows in the stack continue their updating, as opposed to a stack of screenshots. I don’t know how behavior changes on different systems, but this behavior on my computer is awesome.
• Files/programs are indexed, so it's easy to add the search in the start menu to quickly go to files/programs. I'm always going here to start Process Explorer.
• I see potential for the sidebar but I haven't made much use of it. I figure loving this feature is a matter of installing the right gadgets, which I haven't searched for yet (I'm too busy watching videos of software I wish I was a part of developing, like SeaDragon and Photosynth)
• One of the non-important drivers sometimes fails and Vista stops it without any ill effects on the system. I assume this driver is running in user mode which ensures it doesn't romp around memory and makes it easy to kill. I suppose I should disable the faulty driver.
• I've been running Vista constantly for about three months and the only system crash I had was World of Warcraft overheating the CPU. Vista booted up fine after the abrupt shut off (and time to cool the computer) and I was back to grinding in the Ghostlands in no time.
• It hooks up nicely to my Xbox 360 and watching video from my laptop on my television is a snap

These comments are more from a user perspective than a Vista developer perspective. I haven't dug into using any of the Vista-specific programming bits yet, but I am looking forward to exploring. I'm most interested in experimenting with the security improvements exposed to application developers. I'm spending a lot of my time these days learning WPF/Silverlight and playing around with various other technologies at work and at home, so getting into the guts of Vista hasn't happened yet and probably won't for awhile.

As an aside to the above comments, I wanted to briefly post the differences between versions of Vista.

• Vista Basic: Stripped down Vista, no Aero Desktop, no media center, limited backup, no collaboration/media creation tools.
• Vista Home Premium: Suitable for most regular users. Includes Aero, collaboration, media center, media creation (Windows DVD Maker, Windows Movie Maker)
• Vista Business: Good version for businesses - doesn't include media center / media creation software, but does include the full PC Backup/Restore tool and Fax/Scan tools.
• Vista Ultimate: This has everything.

Consult http://www.microsoft.com/windows/products/windowsv... for detailed information.