Windows Vista - First Impressions

Final Thoughts...

At this stage, Beta 1 looks very interesting, but it really is the 'concept car' of releases and there's a lot more work to do before we can start really getting our teeth into this. Given that it runs fine on a machine of the low spec I used, I don't know if that's good because all the interesting new things don't tax it, or bad because they haven't put the performance guzzling code in yet. I'll save that judgement for when future releases come out.

As we're an honest bunch of realists here at bit-tech towers, I know that there are those of you out there who are clearly not on the beta list or do not have access to MSDN like myself, but will no doubt be turning over a disk in their hands as I write this. How you get it is not our business, but to those of you thinking of putting it on your main system in this incarnation I say, don't.

It's unstable, buggy and many of the features which will make it interesting have not been finalised, let alone implemented in this release. I for one will be reformatting my PC back to XP very soon.

That said, it's good to be able to see what's on the horizon and from the looks of it, good things are coming this way. Personally, and much to the chagrin of my Pro-Windows commitee, I have always wanted a more visually stimulating (dare say it?) Apple-like desktop to work with. I've never denied I like form, but I also like function and speed as well. One of the top arguments from OSX/Tiger users is the speed of the GUI, however with a graphics-hardware-driven desktop, some of the beauty I've been after in an OS (and some features which Apple fans have had for years) may finally be realised.

The upcoming security releases are obviously a welcome addition, not least to address the issues we have now. That said, with every new update of Windows, more holes are found and I suspect every single desktop user in the world will certainly 'believe it when they see it' in regards to a secure operating system which keeps their personal data in and the prying eyes of a hacker out.

Promises of fantastic features are one thing and this certainly is no Windows ME - however let's wait and see what happens with Beta 2 before we all start reformatting hard disks gleefully.

A cautious 'thumbs up' so far.