Mostly, in and of itself, it works... There are lots of apps and drivers that still don't, such as the afore-mentioned Symantic. (I dwnlded the trend micro)
Some apps...
Doom 3 works just fine, thank you.
Combat Flt Sim 1 works, but its really not playable.
SH3 just won't work. Installs fine but then refuses to recognize the OS, compatability mode or not.
MS Office 2003 works (in compatability mode)
Nortel VPN client can't be made to work, but installs OK.
Drivers
Creative beta drivers dated Aug 10 (from memory) work just fine.
Nvidia drivers don't work at all. But the disclaimer states '5384 only' and they were fine in Beta 2... Native 6800u graphics drivers are fine, but as of yet no SLI.
No problems with MB, NICs, USB, SATA, IDE, etc. Haven't tried to burn a DVD yet, but have played a dvd movie just fine.
One small whinge I have is my new Seagate 320 GB sata drive has turned up to have some bad sectors. Vista let me install to it just fine, thank you, but didn't catch the bad sectors or fix them prior to install. At least this vista version takes advantage of the S.M.A.R.T errors, but I think should have tested for them prior to install. NT took a long time to install, mostly because of all the error checking on your volumes, but in the end you ended up with a clean install.
I'll have to RMA the drive Mon., no problem... But then I have to go through with the painful re-install process.
So like said previously... My Mother is not probably gonna get this for her birthday... But I'm quite a bit happier with where it is now having lived with where its come from.