Vista Ultimate

Yes, it's finally here: the pinnacle of Microsoft's manifold glory. It's mostly the same as the pre-release versions that I've been running since last August, so there's not much new to report.

It still runs my favorite free and open source programs just fine.

I had become quite adept at transferring the necessary settings and files from one install to another through the process of repeatedly installing beta versions, so I had no trouble doing that, with the help of my external drive to hold the files, and Athena, my trusty Linux server, still had all of my install files. I upgraded where there was a new version of a program that I use.

Vista's fancy-shmancy window-switching: if you have a graphics card that can handle it, you can use it with Win+Tab (in stead of Alt+Tab).



For all the hum-drum of the final release, I don't want to give anyone the impression that Vista is not pretty. Vista is very pretty, and I think they've done a fine job. The User Account Control feature isn't annoying anymore.



They seemed to have made some minor UI tweaks. I noticed some of the sounds had changed. Also, the file folders used to be open just a crack, so that you could hardly see what was inside them, and they've opened them up a bit.



Vista still doesn't behave quite right with the taskbar on the top of the screen (which is not standard). I still get windows opening underneath it, and two of my icons at the bottom of the screen (Firefox and Opera) keep migrating up one notch.

I haven't yet explored the differences between Home Premium, which is what I had for the beta test, and Ultimate.