I've had Windows Vista Beta 2 on my laptop (only OS) for about a weeks now. I really like the out-of-the-box "mountain tunnel" (as my son calls it) background - really sharp. I do like the Sidebar, can't wait to see some more Gadgets for download. Windows SideShow rocks and works well with my Mobile PC and phone. Windows Collaboration is really cool – it seems a harkening back to NetMeeting; I wonder where this will go. Windows Contacts and Calendar hold some real promise but only if they don’t cause additional duplication between Office Outlook, Windows and Live Messenger; I really like the WebDav publishing and sharing capabilities. Overall it’s been a good week.
Vista issues - not totally unexpected from a Beta OS:
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I've been unable to install Daemon Tools or other such ISO image mounting software and Roxio's Image Loader doesn't work either. This has been a bit of a pain. As a pure-play Microsoft consultant/developer it's tough to load a new dev machine without some such app as the only other solution is to download and burn everything to DVD before install.
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Internet Explorer 7+ locked up today and I haven't been able to get it to run again. Luckily, I installed Firefox last week as a means of reviewing my sites with a non-IE browser.
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I was able to get Virtual PC 2004 up, despite the install warning, but the first image I tried to launch sat there for a half hour before I gave up and turned it off. I’ve installed Service Pack 1 and will try again in the morning; I’ll update the post with the results.