>>I'm pretty underwhelmed:
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>>1. "Security, security, security": MS said much the same thing about XP. Security is something you earn over time, not something you announce in advance
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>It's going to take some major OS changes before Windows is truely more secure. Remember it's history...many of those problems go away in Vista. For example, device drivers will no longer run in the same security context as the kernel.

When I was running NT 3.51 back in 1995, video drivers (for example) ran outside the kernel. NT4 moved them back in for "performance reasons". Besides, with rare exceptions (e.g. USB driver vulns) this addresses stability, not security.

>
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>>2. IE7: "Firefox-inspired", why not just use FireFox which is available today, for your platform?
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>Because Firefox doesn't display many sites. Personally, I don't like tabbed browsing, but having seen what the two do in this area, IE 7.0 does it better.

FF renders more sites properly than you probably think. For example, this site (UT) is pretty complex and FF runs it just fine. I use IE far less than 1% of the time for those few (typically 2nd or 3rd tier e-commerce) sites that don't work properly with FF, and those sites are becoming fewer all the time.

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>>3. "Righteous eye candy" - but you need a hot machine just to run the UI?? Looks like the worst case of bloatware I've seen in a while.
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>Not really. Once you understand Avalon, there is MUCH it can do for your business and in our applications.

Care to elaborate? (the article author should have but didn't)

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>>4. Desktop search - get it today from Google, on your platform.
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>I don't use desktop search, so I can't comment.
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>>5. "Better updates" - the commentator says it best, "isn't a gee-whiz upgrade".
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>This comes back to better security.
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>>6. "More media" - very little here for business use other than distraction. Good for kids in a "Vista Home Edition" I suppose.
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>Not necessarily. It depends on your business needs. It's all tied into WinFx (See #3 above).
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>>7. "Parental controls" - nothing here for business. Potential temporary annoyance for kids in a "Vista Home Edition".
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>It's going to be much more difficult for kids to get around this compared to what we have today...and the Administrator can be notified when it happens.
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>>8. "Better backups" - at last, something potentially worthwhile - as long as it at least partially catches up to the best-of-breed 3rd party products out there.
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>Most users don't use third party backup software for their desktop. If there was an easy way built in, then users would do it more often.

MS needs to catch up with basic technology, such as image backups which no released version of Windows has ever offered natively.

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>>9. "Peer to peer collaboration" - again, potentially worthwhile if easier to use and better integrated than existing 3rd party alternatives, and ideally not limited to Vista (although it sounds like a weak attempt by MS to try to force a lock-in/upgrade, a la Windows Media Player 10)
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>I haven't tried this at all, so I can't say.
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>>10. "Quick Setup" - not an ongoing benefit to anyone, and it's "beta" (IOW enjoy with a considerable mass of sodium chloride)
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>I disagree. If you are an OEM or in a large corporate IT department, this has lots of potential.

OEMs - no way. They image hard drives, do no installations whatsoever. Large corporate IT departments are probably (or should be) looking at imaging options as well. This feature (if it makes it into the final product) would actually be of most use for smaller shops doing manual installations.

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>>I can see two possible interpretations of all this:
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>>A. Michael Desmond doesn't know what he's talking about, and Vista is actually much better than his list would otherwise lead us to believe
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>>B. He does know what he's talking about and this really is the best list he could come up with. If he can somehow conclude that "in a lot of ways, it's a giant leap forward" clearly he's just an MS shill.
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>He really didn't explain any of his points well. My reason for posting the link was to get people thinking...looks like it worked for you.

Hmm, I was hoping the article would be informative. The title seemed to imply that...