Anilrgowda

I have now been running the RTM versions of Windows Vista on 4 systems for over a month now, and I must say that despite a few minor annoyances, and waiting for some updated drivers, I am pretty impressed. No blue screens, no major system freezes (although I still have some sleep issues), and most importantly, everything I need to do my daily computer tasks is up and running. I have both the Ultimate and Home Premium editions installed, and my hardware runs the gamut from high-end to budget. Even on the budget systems, performance seems good, and all systems are running the full Windows Vista feature set, including Aero Glass (even with integrated graphics on the laptop.)

Of course, my Core 2 Duo systems screams, although I am still anxiously awaiting Crossfire support from ATI in order to take advantage of my dual graphics cards. My wife's Pentium D 820 system is also running quite well, and after upgrading her ATI x300SE card to a more powerful x1600PRO, even playing games is a breeze. My older AMD x64 3200+ system also runs quite well, and I have noticed that the TCP autotuning feature seems to give me better speeds when surfing the internet. Then of course there is the budget Sempron laptop, which despite its lower end hardware, runs everything Vista throws at it quite well - although it does slow down a bit when trying to multi-task as compared to the Core 2 system.

One of my major complaints with the earlier Beta and RC releases was the lack of a functioning Media Center. I have grown used to my MCE 2005 system, and having live TV on a second monitor while working has become something I enjoy having. With Windows Vista RTM, the Media Center has performed quite well. Of course I am using a MS supplied Hauppage WinTV PVR 500 dual TV tuner (thanks MS!), and the drivers are probably some of the best so far. For those who still have hardware issues, there are sure to be major driver updates for most hardware over the next few weeks, and there should also be a number of software updates/patches for some applications which still have issues running on Windows Vista.

I have been experimenting quite heavily with the Speech Recognition in Vista, and although there are still some areas that need some work, overall it rocks! Being able to surf the web, change TV channels, send emails, and listen to music without ever having to touch my keyboard or mouse is a great thing - especially when using the Media Center interface on a big screen. With a wireless headset, I can sit in the lounge chair and control my PC without even needed the remote - talk about some serious lounging.