I've been running Vista RC1 for the past several months. Essentially, since RC1 was released. When RC2 was released I neglected to get at it so I made the jump directly from RC1 to RTM.
MSDN released RTM of Vista today so I took the plunge.
If you're interested in my initial synopsis: underwhelmed. There, I said it.
That said, the gritty details follow:
Vista RC1 was definitely an upgrade from XP. It has been serving me well for the past few weeks/months, but there have been a couple of line-of-business applications we run internally that have been absolutely not supported on Vista. If you're in the camp of: I run standard large-vendor apps all the time, then you may be fine. However, if you run anything that is business specific, you may definitely have some issues. In healthcare, the primary apps that run the business are fairly unique and miserably fail under Vista. That includes both our practice management software (i.e. billing/scheduling), and our EMR (patient records). Both vendors say they'll work on Vista support once RTM hits, so I sit in waiting. Fortunately, I don't use line-of-business apps as my day-to-day. In my day to day I manage a small IS shop of a decently sized healthcare practice in the U.S. We have a team of 10 including myself. The team is a mix of developer and system support, myself the only one running Vista at present.
In the meantime, I've resorted to the beta of Virtual PC 2007 to run XP to host my line-of-business applications.
Back to Vista RTM:
My first impressions of Vista were horrible. The number of UAC (User Account Control?) that limits access by all accounts - even those run as local admin's is completely unacceptable. I sent multiple feedback requests to the Vista team about this. Vista Team: Thanks for putting the link to this DIRECTLY on the desktop, and not buried deep. The visibility on the desktop made me think, "This team wants to hear this." and made me more candid about my feedback as petty as it may have been in some cases. Thanks much.
Overall, the Vista experience is good, to happy (in isolated cases). The usability of the whole OS is decent. I don't have much to compare it to other than XP, and it contains many usability improvements which I would consider "nice-to to must-have improvements". XP from the "chrome" aspect needs an update. It seems so old-skool and outdated. Vista definitely delivers on the eye-candy front.
Can it deliver on the ultimate driver of decisions: business value.
First, if you manage an IT department you're probably asking yourself how you're going to manage the transition to Vista in a strategic manner. First thing: every single user that uses Windows is going to have to have training. This is not a minor upgrade. Microsoft has done some good things with the UI that makes it more intuitive, etc. but if you want your users to actually take advantage of the Windows interface itself, they're going to need training. It's similar - but disorienting.
Now from a raw functionality standpoint: does it work? Yes. If you run XP, should you convert? No.
Why? Unless you have clear business need for an application that requires Vista, there is absolutely no need to run Vista compared to XP.
I've yet to see the "killer app" on Vista that's going to bring the world to Vista.
Of course, Vista is the necessary, much needed, much delayed, absolutely required upgrade Microsoft needed to bring XP into the new century. However, is there anything compelling that will bring the world to Vista - as far as I can tell - no.
I'm a developer originally, so I bring with myself some bias, such that I think it completely stupid that Microsoft dropped WinFS from the original Vista build. If they release it in say, 1 month and it brings world peace - I'll be proven wrong. In the meantime, Without WinFS (and the world peace-inducing advancements it was promised to bring) there are absolutely zero advanced OS capabilities this thing offers (in terms of business value-add).
The question to ask yourself: will it make employee's more productive?
Is it where the world should be headed - yes. Is it worth it? No.
Therein lies the problem. How many years has Microsoft been at work on this? How bad does it need to renew its revenue annuity stream of Windows licensee's? Much. Thus, is this driven by pure consumer advantage and value vs. the Microsoft consumer-annuity running dry? I am not sure. But beware.
I haven't seen business apps that REQUIRE Vista. Until I do, I can't make judgement. But my judgement today - this second - is that there is absolutely no requirement to upgrade to Vista from XP.
I think of it also from my "home" situation where I run XP Pro. Is it worth it to pay $150 or so to upgrade to Vista Business, or even $199 for Ultimate? Oh my heavens, no.
Here's the thing: Vista offers some niceties, but it is not worth the upgrade price for admission to the new club.
In order to keep this post to a minimum, and focus on my points I will make a new post with my opinions about usability between RC1 and RTM.