Windows Vista Enterprise – First Thoughts

The following is a piece I published elsewhere back in February. Since that site it defunct I wanted to move my article over to this blog. I’ll post some more updated thoughts on Vista soon (unlike some people I still have a very positive opinion of Vista), but for now here are my thoughts from after running the final release for a month:

I had been running the Vista beta (which, in case you did not know, was the Ultimate edition) since the summer and was very happy with it. A couple of weeks ago I had the opportunity to install the actual release of Vista, the Enterprise edition. Since it’s been up and running for me I wanted to relay my thoughts on it.

First of all, the setup is very easy and surprisingly fast. I was up and running in Windows in just under a half an hour (27 minutes if you want the exact figure).  A few things that caught my eye that were different from the beta. First off, the final release actually has more drivers. I didn’t have to spend another hour making my video card work with 2 monitors, one widescreen, like I did in the beta. Also my sound card worked right away, instead of having to fiddle with drivers for that.

On the security front, there were two things I noticed immediately. First, the local administrator account is disabled by default. Finally. Second, thanks to the User Access Control (UAC) I can finally run in Windows with a regular user account and actually be able to do things. Since I did the install on January 23rd I have only had to log on to an administrative account once, and that was to set up my backup schedule using Windows Backup. Everything else I have been able to provide appropriate credentials through the UAC while I am logged on as a user. Very cool. The only program I have had a problem with so far is Active Directory Users and Computers (ADUC). While I can run it with elevated privileges, I can not manage remote computers since it seems to pass my user account that I am logged on with as opposed to my admin account that I ran the program with. A small detail, but annoying for me since I find myself remotely managing computers from within ADUC fairly frequently.

Thanks to the Aero interface and the fact that I have a decent video card to utilize it, Vista is very visually stunning. It is just nice to look at and work in. It’s hard to explain, but I find that I have grown accustomed to the Vista interface and find it preferable than earlier versions of Windows and even OS X. Vista has changed the layout of everything from the start menu to the control panel, and although it took a little bit to get used to, the new start menu is excellent. The new Sidebar with Gadgets is great, especially if you have dual monitors or a large monitor so it doesn’t get in the way. That is both the advantage and disadvantage of the sidebar over OS X’s dashboard. The sidebar is always there, ready to be looked at. That was what I hated about the OS X Dashboard, having to switch to it. I always thought, “Why couldn’t these always be available on my desktop?” Well, with the Vista sidebar they can be. However, I have a dual monitor setup with lots of screen real estate. I can understand how it can get in the way if you are working off of a single 17″ monitor. But if you have the room, it is great.

Overall I am so far very happy with my Vista experience. It has been very stable and functional. Combined with the new Office 2007, Microsoft is making some very good changes.