The problem with Vista is that it is little more then XP with a facelift, some useful gimmicks and more stringant DRM. However, there are probably a couple of under the hood improvements, but are mostly transparent to the end-user.

Honestly, you're all going to buy it anyway, so why bother arguing?

Just give me WinFS and I'd be happy. Screw the fluffy crap.

the article sounds like an advertisement to me. as a "power user" i heard nothing but fluff.

faster downloads because the tcp ip stack was rewritten? i don't believe that. the tcp/ip stack isn't the bottleneck when downloading files.

higher fidelity sound? how so? there's no details to substantiate that claim.

better security to me means that drm will be more pervasive. im not getting viruses/trojans now, and i dont need an OS to babysit me in that regard. is anyone having problems with people breaching their firewall? i'm not, and if i were a business i doubt i'd rely on built in software anyway.

theres also no information in the article about why "improved heap management" does anything substantial. will i even notice? if vista takes 3x the processing cycles as XP to chug out some transparency effect or another i doubt i'll notice.

overall i would say that this OS isn't worth $300 or whatever amount they'll charge for the version that any power user would want. it is foolish to try to convince somone right now that vista is worth getting and then leave out any benchmarks or any information that power users even care to read.

hmmm...

i'm interested in the Performance Control panel. Looks neat.

Too bad its ratings are shoddy, and it CAN'T DO BASIC MATH.

if you click on the screenshot, it offers up this:

CATAGORY; DETAIL; RATING

PROC: AMD Athlon 64 fx-25; 4.4 (huh? I figgured it'd be better than that)
RAM; 1023 mb; 5.9 (that's standard, not high, wtf)
HD: 225.88 gb frree 5.9 (Only a 5.9 for twice as much disk space as teh average user? huh?)
Graphics: Nvidia geforce 7800 gs; 5.9 (Er, isnt this a top-of-the-line card?)
gaming graphics: 248 mb graphics memory; 5.8 (er..?)

OVERALL RATING: 4

4? FOUR?! a 4.4, three 5.9s. and a 5.8... and the overall rating is a 4?

I hope to god that was a photoshop'ed screenshot.

I just hope that if all those wonderful things and more are true, that there is a way to turn off the fluffy crap.

Vista won't suck as long as it comes in build 2600, is slipstreamable and allows DRM to be hacked out of it.

Wow,sounds cool...faster network performance is something all broadband users will appreciate...and all those with FAT graphics cards will actually get some payback for the big money they cost...a $500 card is wicked in 3D games but most of the time it just sits there idling.
What with a sweet new version of Windows coming this year,ATI on top in the video card market and Intel about to take back the CPU performance crown,2/3 of the regulars here must be pissed :))
How do I know that?...just watch the replies.....

a new driver model I guess that means another year of waiting after it comes out to get any support. How far back will manufactures go this time to support obsol33t hardware?

This review was brought to you by Microsoft.
Have a nice day.

Who cares, all you idiot 9 year olds are going to whine no matter what happens. Get a life.

I think Windows has been pretty good since 95. (not counting "ME" of course)

No reason to suspect that Vista won't be good.

With all of limits that Linux has and with the hardware lock on OSX, we don't have much choice anyways.

One thing I've always wondered/worried about Vista is regarding their DRM implementations.

Here's a couple of things:

1. HDCP - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HDCP - DRM'ing what we can see on our monitors...ugh.
2. EFI - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Extensible_Firmware_Interface enabling - locking down the OS even further.

What I am further worried about is if they will have some ability to drm or otherwise affect our non-drm'd media. For example, tagging all our mp3's, movies files etc or some other horrible act. I wouldn't put it past Microsoft as they are really attempting to batten down the hatches with Vista along with Intel and their secure chipsets. Can anyone offer some information in this area? Am I totally blowing smoke here or is there some potential for concern in this area?

All the nice fluffy stuff and games that won't work, DRM crap that stops being able to display full HDTV to your 30" LCD screen. No HDCP video card available at all means no high resolution movies on that nice widescreen monitor. What I am interested in is how tools like SmartRipper, DVDdecrypter, CloneCD, DaemonTools etc.. will function or not function. Will my BeyondTV which lets me record and playback HDTV on my 30" Dell work in Vista? Can I still populate my TViX box or my LinkTheather/Terastation combo from my 1000+ DVD's?

I play my games using these tools, as I can never find the dammed CD's after a few weeks. Took me 2 months to find the CD for W20K:Winter Assault. It was in the box of one of my other games. I only have about 100 or so CD cases in my room.

Vista = better.
DRM = K.M.A.M.F.
choice = interesting.

end of line.

This article hasnt changed my view on Vista, only twisted the blade. Microsoft finally makes an OS in the correct manner, and it seems the only reason is to make it easier for them to place DRM into everything while being able to dictate how everything must be created in computing realm.
It truly has a lot going for it, but MS spoils it by pandering to business interests over their users.

And, yes, you will supposedly be able to turn off Aero Glass.

Oh, does anyone have any idea what is going on with MIDI? Last I heard, it was going to become furhter abstracted from the actual hardware, in a bad way.

We'll see how long it takes for MS to send out an update when they release it.

Anyone consider that the current crop of DRM in XP/2000 will not work under Vista? ie none of our games will work without a patch from the Game manufacturer.

Some things in Vista are good, but... a big butt

1) If your video card accelerates UI, keep your ears shut, as all theese beefy fans will kick in...
2) DX based UI, means pretty much blow on GL, including wrappers, limited access, incompatible modes and so on...
3) No DX caps means, M$ will dictate what they think should be in a graphic card, no extensions - less innovations. Heck, shaders evolved from extensions!!!
4) HDTV and stuff, we all know that...
5) Just few hundred things we will eventually find...

nice cover *cough* pirate :)

Well, as long as they've been working on it now, I expected a lot more than just a graphical update.