Embracing Vista

From a dogfooding perspective, I have been a laggard on getting Vista installed….but I finally took the plunge and upgraded my system last Friday. Basically, the whole day was a loss, as I had major performance and integration issues after the upgrade. Of course, I expected issues, because I run a lot of special apps, but I was also going against the grain by upgrading rather than a clean install, which was recommended. So this week, I backed up my important files and settings, exported my favorites, and gave it another try — this time with a clean install. And since I was going through this effort a second time, I decided to load up Vista Ultimate. Why not?

Wow. I can honestly say that I love it, and this isn’t just the kool aid talking. Even with the aero user interface (translucent template, 3D folders, etc), the performance is excellent. I am very impressed. Of course, I am also running the beta 2 technical release of the Office 2007 apps, which rock. For example, I’ve been editing a couple docs this morning using Word 2007. There are just so many little things to praise. I’m getting used to the ribbon context windows — makes sense, actually really like it. But my favorite utility is the new 2-page view. I made it my default view when opening files. Love it. Plus, with all of the Office and SharePoint integrations, it’s easy to push a file wherever I need it, whether to my desktop, to a network drive, or to a SharePoint folder.

The main downside: a known integration issue with LiveMeeting, which I rely heavily upon. I can still create sessions by going to the portal or using MeetNow, but the handy dandy Outlook integration is not working right now. The product team is well-aware, so I hope to see that fixed prior to release.