I've been running Vista for the last 14 months... 32 bit and 64 bit. Even the early beta prior ro rc1 would (or could be persuaded to) run quite a few things that I thought would be problematic.
Drivers for some things are a bit problematic, as is SLI support. But I 'could' live with it if I had to as it stands. For me, 'as it stands' means rc2.
I was running rtm and the fit and polish work was just not there. I mean no company besides microsoft would get away with a release like this. When you look at just how many people use this os and how many third parties developers there are. It's going to be a mess no matter what. Instead of releasing an update to xp and fixing bugs that are still there. They completely rewrite it. Therefore creating almost entirely a brand new os with all new bugs, wizards and drivers. Vista is going to be years in the making and I give it 3 or 4 years before it is even close to the same level xp is. I can also guarentee that the adoption rate is 10 times slower as well.
With all the updates to xp, media player, ie7 etc. Basically the only thing missing would be direct x 10 which is another matter. Xp has it all. That is the problem when you wait 5 years to release a new os and screw everyone who uses it.
Are there improvements? Sure I like aero kinda but its nothing special, linux has 10 times the 3d effects and that was developed by people who make pennies or do work for free which is pretty sad.
If apple or linux can continue to gain market share maybe we can finally get an os that customers deserve. I mean vista touts new security features yet activations for it was hacked before it even was released to the general public. I mean could any other company release a product that has 90 percent market share and say "its a work in progress" Nope they would get anti trust sued into the ground.
do I hate microsoft? Sure I do but so does half the industry. All the profits of the industry end up in Microsoft's and Intel's pocket. Intel has finally earned it with the core 2 duo. But Microsoft has been sitting there for 5 years with their new os on the drawing board with no real threat. They have a strangle hold on the industry. If even a quarter of the money that went to microsoft for their os went to linux development it wouldn't be pretty for microsoft. The sad thing is all the money they make from their os, goes to everything else and not back into windows. it goes towards the xbox or whatever else area they lose money.
So point is microsoft doesn't deserve their success or our money. But they have the gaming market, direct x 10 was withheld from xp for a reason.
IE6 is a perfect reason why they cannt be allowed to be the only player in a market. They literally sit on the win. Forever, the only reason ie7 was made was because of firefox and it was a direct clone.
So imaigne what would happen if there was a desktop os that competed with microsoft on a 50/50 market share. I bet microsoft would be releasing 6 month updates to functionality adding new features fix performance issues. We would be on windows 12.0 not 6.1 right now. It would have features i can't even imagine. There would be no activation no integrated apps.
Sorry about the rant but this is one area I am very passionate and irritated about. I will not be buying vista. Not until every third party application, hardware vendor and games makers have come on board.
Yup. Its working. I changed the settings in the Creative audio console to 5.1 from 2.1 and walaaa. 
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