IMHO, the biggest miss that we can blame MS for is the high memory requirement, which was over a gig most of the time for the brief time I had the OS installed on my computer. A more noticeable miss was the lack of driver support for the X-Fi soundcard I have which left my with something that sounded like it belonged on some ancient transistor radio from the 60s than a computer, and especially one which I'd upgraded the sound. I understand there's a new Creative driver which improves the situation but doesn't quite fix it yet. Before I re-install any Vista betas or RCs, they will have to resolve that issue since crappy sound is not an option for me.

Biggest hit for me was the nice new interface. It takes a little getting used to but within 24 hours, it felt very natural for me. A lot of the other stuff that comes with Vista such as IE7 and WMP11 are programs I already had on XP and liked very much.

Clearly Vista will be a huge step forward. It's got teething problems now, but being a beta, that's to be expected. Overall, however, Vista is definitely a hit.

Hmm. Hits for me include the new framework.

A miss in my opinion are underuse by the OS of that framework. The Aero style, for example, is bitmap based, and it really should be XAML vectors (again my ignorant opinion).

The biggest miss for me was that MSIE crashes if I don't run it as an administrator - a particular pain in the ass with Vista. And, since many of the default desktop and start menu icons open IE, I was experiencing a lot of freezes. People said update Java runtimes, but that didn't work. So, a big miss for me is Vista plain doesn't work.

But the thing that prevented me from trying to chase down this bug further is the incessant "security" confirmations. As if malware changing the screen resolution or font size is a real problem. Vista discourages customization and tweaking with all these "Are You Sures", which don't just pop up. They pause responsiveness, do some funky resolution thing, make you think its busted, then appear in a random location.

I personally simply won't be able to use an operating system that interrupts workflow to the extent the Beta 2 does in the name of security.

Another miss is general lack of feedback. Frequently one can click a button for example, and the cursor doesn't change, the button doesn't change, nothing to tell you if things are working.

My mom's computer recently crashed, and after she bought a new one I decided to try to reformat. I put Vista Beta 2 on it, and was pretty impressed. I should say, that this computer is pretty crappy. 1.6 GHz, 385 RAM, integrated graphics and sound, 80GB HD. And you know what? Vista ran pretty smoothly. Of course there was no Aero, but I was able to look around and it wasn't slow at all.

I'm almost certain Microsoft can get Vista to run with 512 RAM and a limited graphics card.

Guys, what the hell is that article talking about? I mean seriously are they even being serious? Is that website a "professional" site?

This website mansions at the start that they are talking about Windows Vista "BETA 2", yet they are taking about these problems as problems in the "final product"! Windows Vista is still not final, and any opinions that they have must be sent to Microsoft for to improve the final product, but talking about this beta version this way is just unprofessional and has no point of posting over the net; in the pages from 2 - 9 Windows Vista was mentioned as if it was a final product which gives very very bad impression for regular readers who didn't try Vista yet!

For the love of god, ask the writers to stop talking about this OS as if it was final, talk about what's new or what is bad while clearing out that it is a BETA, and if you have any real deal opinions then collect them and send them to Microsoft, they would love to get these reports, instead of us and that website talking about Vista like if we were some kids talking about barbie dolls!

Huge miss, INTERFACE!! It's a mess, open My Computer in XP then Vista which looks cleaner.......

talking about Vista like if we were some kids talking about barbie dolls!

No Malibu Vista???


Sigh. As I have not been privy to any of these beta's, I have to say that all this info is rather confusing without being able to compare to actual user experience. My PC is on the scale of Adamness' Mom's PC, though I have upgraded my Graphics card. I tried the Windows Vista Upgrade Advisor and it said I could run the Vista Home (Deluxe? I forget what word they used) but I am apprehensive. When I first started using a PC, XP was new and I barely met the requirements. I notice the difference now, 3 PC's later. I imagine I will go through the same with Vista. I feel like every time I am close to catching up I get the rug pulled out from under me.

overall system performance for code that is so close to release

Zoomba,

A beta, no matter what number it may be should be considered close to release. Now, if it were RC2 I would concede your point but a beta is very much still in the works and it's probably still being built in debug mode which at least partially explains the extremely large size and memory requirements. Every miss he mentions can be attributed to the fact that this code is still beta, in fact the security dialogs have already been fixed from what I understand in the latest beta that is not being made available to the CTP group. I'm not buying it, seems to me that it's another article by someone who felt they needed to write a Vista article.

1) Hit: Vista's Sidebar & Gadgets

Though they seem to be ripped off from Apple's Dashboard and widgets used in OS X, that doesn't make Vista's Sidebar and Gadgets any less appealing.

   

Though they seem to be ripped off from Apple's Dashboard and widgets used in OS X

Oh stop this talk for the love of god! Whatever you say or do about how Vista is copying OSX, there is no way to compare both systems to each other, no way, what so ever!

Wait for the final product and let us see who will rule the computer market for the next 10 years!