Bought a copy of Windows Vista Business yesterday. Why Windows Vista Business? Because it costs less than Home Premium, the only other edition that comes with Aero (apart from Ultimate ofcourse). It costed something like 8000 bucks !!! but I believe its worth luxury/premium price (atleast so far I believe that 😉 )
Some of my old apps dont run. VS2005 Standard installs properly, but when I started it for the first time I was asked to download a 500 MB service pack!!!! All the other software that I have works quite well. Qt 4.2.3, VTK 5.0.3, VTK Designer 2 (development version) all work quite well. All the commercial projects that I am involved in also work well on Vista.
I am from the non-WindowsHaters camp. Not that I like Windows (in all respects) either. But then I dont really care. I have used OpenSuSE 10.1 and 10.2 both of which are very very very impressive. It is a complete pleasure to work on them. I have been a Windows user and have been doing development on Windows for quite a few years now and my experience has been good. It has been extremely good ever since I started using genuine software. GNU/Linux has always been a developer paradise for me and it will continue to be.
The Aero Interface looks good. Applications seem to start faster on Vista. Maybe because the registry is not cluttered yet. I am however not a fan of the so called “improved user control” system in Vista. It asks me for permission when any process does anything on the C drive. Couple of concepts in Vista have also changed. For example the Windows Explorer doesnt look like “Windows Explorer” anymore. It is refreshingly new. Instant search feature is quite good. I really liked Windows Photo Gallery. After fSpot I guess Windows Photo Gallery is the only photo software my tiny little brain could comprehend.
Windows Vista is surely not as bad as some reviews have painted it to be. All in all, Windows Vista is good but for the “price tag” and nagging questions and the lack of support for old apps. If only I could control my curiosity about Vista longer, I would have bought a copy of Vista a couple of months later and saved some more money.