Before you can download Vista from www.microsoft.com or request a DVD sent to you by mail (you have to pay $4. for shipping and wait 2 - 6 weeks for the DVD). Microsoft will ask you what you are going to use Vista for - I clicked everything except business stuff and got the big version called Ultimate which includes the Media Center. If you only click Home Basic you will get the smallest version - yes Vista comes in different sizes now so if you have a small computer you can still use Vista. Microsoft will make sure you have the necessary resources to run what you asked for on your system.

If you don't have the necessary resources on the machine you are running to install the system you are asking for, Microsoft won't let you do the download. For example at first I had only 7 GB free space on C and Microsoft would not let me download Vista until I freed up some space - as soon as I had 15 GB free on C I was able to download the Vista DVD.

With XP there is only one version. On Vista there are 5 or 6 versions. The smallest (home basic) is apparently tiny and will run on a small computer - the Home basic only requires an 800 MHg machine with 512 MB of memory. Microsoft will decide for you which operating system you will get (on your DVD) based on your resources and what you are going to use it for - how you answer their questionnaire. It will then allow you to download that particular version of Vista recommending a particular download manager that can be interrupted. I said ok and off we went.

What you are downloading is an iso file which you then have to burn on a DVD so if you don't have a DVD burner on the system you are going to install Vista on you may have to go out and buy one (one with a usb 2.0 connection is nice). The download with a high end DSL connection takes about 8 hours, with low end DSL it takes about 11 hours. In my case the resulting DVD is a DVD containing Vista Ultimate.

Somewhere in the beginning of this Microsoft will insist that you give them a valid email address with a valid password. I thought I sure am NOT going to give Microsoft my password so I tried to give them bogus ones but they didn't like it - apparently they actually go log in to your system or at least confirm somehow that the password and userid match. I finally gave them the correct password and they sent me an email that contained a Vista key that you will have to copy and paste later in the install process. So now you have a DVD and a key and you are all set to begin the install. I quickly went out and changed my email password.

Once you have a DVD and a key the actual install takes about 8 hours and you have to be on line throughout. You can apparently use that DVD and key to install Vista on 10 computers.

You have a choice of installing over an existing windows or installing from scratch. Installing over an existing windows is nice because all your applications and personal defaults will be set up for you. If you install from scratch you will have to re-install all your applications after Vista is up. I chose to install over my XP SP2.

Before I installed Vista I made an exact copy of my hard drive that had two partitions: XP SP2 on C at 40 gig and D at about 80 gig (that contains just data) and put the copy in a closet for safe keeping. what I should have done but didn't think of it was to run RegSeeker before I did the copy. I did cleanups and defrags on everything before the copy.

For the most part Vista works great and one could argue that it is a magnificent operating system with some serious reservations (see Winamp and the lack of DVD drivers below). I have had it up now for eight straight days - it has never crashed and the cursor has never frozen - I am going to keep it as my production windows system and hold my XP disk aside.

It has a few very nice new features including:

- You can get what is called a "Windows System Performance Rating" via: Left click start -->Control Panel--> Performance rating and tools which looks like:

As you can see my overall rating is a three. In the near future software will be rated using this number. For example I would not be able to run software rated a 4 or 5 but could run anything rated a 3 or lower. I started with a sub rating of 3.8 in the "Primary hard disk" free space category with 15 gig on C - I deleted a bunch of space hoping to increase this number but discovered that even with 87.25 GB free the 3.8 did not change. My overeall three might go up to a four if I got another gig of memory. Worth it for $145.? Naw not now but this feature is very nice.

- Before you boot you are given the oppoortunity to come up in seven different ways including: a male or female voice speaking what is on the screen, an on screen keyboard, enhanced video color - left click start --> Control Panel - -> Ease of access center to get all the ddetails. I tried the speaking but the voice was impossible to listen to because it kept interrupting itself every few seconds.

- Windows Explore in Vista is differentt than using Windows Explore in XP. If you give up trying to figure out how it works, left click start, go into help and support, and go to "Where are my files and folders" to get an intro into the new explore architecture. Vista explore does crash - I always send the details to Microsoft so it can get fixed.

Running with Vista is a little like if you have driven a 1964 Ford all your life and you suddenly step into a Ferrari 150. Yes it's basically the same - step on gas it goes, step on brake it stops and both steer exactly the same way, but, Vista is a new animal and it is going to take some work to get used to. Just like sitting in the Ferrari. You just don't even know where to start with all the new buttons and switches and things, and NOTHING is the same as the 1964 Ford.

First of all, when it first came up I couldn't find anything and when I did find it I didn't have the authorization to even look at it.

DUH !

Most of my important application software works under Vista including Sonar 3.0, IE 7 running with or without Tor and Privoxy, FireFox running with or without Tor and Privoxy, Photoshop, PageMaker, Skype, SpyBot, Ad-Aware, HiJackThis (but you have to run it authorized), Belarc, GoogleEarth, RegSeeker (yes and I did delete all 1,940 entries it found - many may have been from my XP system).

However when I ran TreeSize Professional 2.4 I was directed to their web page with the comment, "You have been using this product a long time. Please go to our web page, buy it and register it.

The good news is that now no one that is using Vista will be able to run software that they haven't paid for. Sounds like hijacked or pirated software around the world will no longer run.

Vista beta will prevent ZoneAlarm from coming up !!!!

So, zonealarm will not be able to be used to prevent TreeSize et al from getting to the Internet. Without ZoneAlram thousands if not millions of copies of software can now get to the Internet to check on cd key validity. That sounds good for the world economy - letting the authors get paid for their work. Another excellent feature.

I still have not figured out how to do a search and Vista seems to have a mind of it's own. e.g. I saved a notpad file giving it the name something.html - which was saved as something.html.txt - something added the .txt. Hello" operating system, please don't do that ok?"

I still can not find anything. For example: I THINK that Vista has taken all of my .wmv e.g. movies and have collected them all and have put them in a new folder somewhere. Hello? My movies were in folders by DVD name. I do NOT want them all in one huge folder. Maybe vista just gave me a new index to look at.

Lots and lots of new stuff to get used to just like sitting in that new Ferrari.

Media Center looks interesting but have not tried to use it to burn a DVD and I don't have a TV receiver. You can get to the media center via left click start --> all programs --> Media Center

When your cursor is over an application in your task bar a thumbnail will immediately flash showing you the contents of the window.

or

The capacity of Vista to run applications is almost exactly the same as XP. With both if I have over 20 applications running (and over 100 processes) things start to slow down and eventually applications will not be able to open any windows and double clicking any shortcut will be ignored. Vista works the same way as XP does in this regard.

Yahoo Widgets all work ok.

Basically email and Web browsing works just fine so I guess I am going to use this Vista system as my production then just pay for it when it is released in 2007.

Vista seems to be a little faster than XP.

For Aero glass go to Start --> Control Panel --> Personalization --> Theme - try Windows Vista. Also Start --> Control Panel --> Personalization vissual Appearance is where you can turn on Aero Transparency glass and CANDY which makes your web pages beautiful - Aero glass is pleasing - e.g. it makes buttons glow.

And the screen saver called Bubbles is fun - the bubbles bump into each other and change color:

I have the Vista firewall turned on, Automatic updating on, and Windows Defender up and running.

If you use Yahoo for your email you will not be able to update your email addresses with Vista Build 5384.

Tabs in IE 7 don't always work.

One big possible down side: Vista will not let WinAmp come up. I hope that Microsoft has not prevented winAmp from coming up so we are forced to use a Microsoft product so they can keep track of what we listen to and when. They could sell that information. Microsoft did that once before many years ago when they went from 3.1 to Windows 95 they prevented any CD burning software from running so Microsoft could find out exactly what we were burning. A public outrage forced a patch eight months later that allowed Nero and all other burners to work again.

In the "Oh no not again department" CD or DVD burners (like Nero and Easy CD Creator) will not work in Vista except those burners written by Microsoft - Microsoft apparently wants everyone to use their burner so they can keep track of who burns what. This product IS in beta so perhaps they are just testing the waters.

What I listen to is my business but gosh thanks for asking.

Notepad is flaky sometimes undoing what you just did (actually it used to do that in XP as well). It also seems to add characters to text. All the double characters that are in this document are the result of bugs in Notepad.

SIW by Gabriel Tapala looks like it won't open - "Can't open WinIO.sys driver" but then does open.

Well I guess I am going to get behind the wheel of my new Ferrari like os and surf the web Winamp or no Winamp, DVD burner or no DVD burner.

;-)