What Do I Think Of Vista?

Okay, every time I mention that I have a new computer, I get two questions:

"Does it have Vista?"

and...

"What do you think of Vista?"

The answer is, after spending a day and a half installing software, transferring files and such, I'm finally starting to figure out the ways that Vista makes life easier than XP. The problem is, most people don't use their computers enough to figure out those differences, and get impatient with not being able to do things the way the used to.

One example of this is the Windows explorer window which has some really slick features, but is enough different in its layout that it irritated me at first. In XP you have an "up one level" button, which I used all the time. But not in Vista. At first I thought this was a horrible oversight, until I finally realized that the window's address bar was made up of clickable folder names, which allows me to not just go up one level, but also up two levels or three levels, with just one click.

As a developer, I do have one frustration which most people will rarely face...

If I want to manually tweak an ini file or configuration file, I can't just open it in Notepad, edit it, and save it. I have to open notepad as Administrator ("Run as Administrator" is an option available by right clicking on notepad), then open the file from within Notepad, make my changes, then save it.

I've got most of my software installed (both Flash 8 and Visual Studio.net installed without major problems, which is a relief, since between them those two pieces of software cost more than the computer itself, and I didn't want to have to upgrade them)

I am going to have to upgrade a couple less expensive programs, but I can live with that.

And, my printer driver installed without a glitch (in fact, it was easier than installing it on XP).

And aside from all that, I'm loving having a computer with a screen so big that half the time I don't even bother maximizing my windows. :)