I just installed Windows Vista Ultimate on my home rig and work laptop.
So far, I see no compelling reason to upgrade. Not only is Microsoft confusing everyone with six different versions of their newest OS incarnation, but the price is still too high, and the product is still not going to think for you.
Wikipedia has detailed information on the new "advances" in Vista here. Some of them, like the new graphical interface, are pleasant, if your system is less than two years old and began as a high-end machine. Otherwise, you’re really not getting anything great. In fact, in some areas, like user control, you’ll actually be stepping backward. Windows Vista forces you to answer many irritating prompts authorizing actions to take place that you most likely already initiated. Vista approaches security much like airports do by relentlessly asking you if you’re sure that no one else has handled your "bags" – in this case the bags are installer packages. Then there is the improved DRM (digital rights management) – Vista attempts to completely control your ability to make copies of various media. If you like being babysat, then Vista is an improvement. If you don’t, then Vista is a big kick in the rear end.
My initial installation attempt (upgrade) failed at home due to my use of a simple RAID mirroring configuration. The installation finished, don’t get me wrong. It’s just that the computer wouldn’t boot after it was done. Vista didn’t like either the on-board RAID on my two year old Intel motherboard or the add on PCI RAID card by Adaptec. Needless to say, I ended up getting rid of the RAID configurtation, and doing a clean install on the home machine. Now I’m slowly restoring applications by manually reinstalling, and I am carefully guarding my backup. A lot of older CD burning apps won’t work in Vista. Neither will my PGP Desktop software. And I’m sure there are other problems I haven’t yet discovered.
At work, things went a little smoother with my upgrade from Windows XP to Windows Vista. Windows warned me prior to installation that my scanner wouldn’t work. It did anyhow, when the process was over. What stopped working? Our corporate anti-virus product by Trend Micro. And there were other irritating quirks. My applications all stayed alive through the upgrade process, but almost all of them act as if I’ve never used them before. My preferences have all but disappeared across the system.
The bottom line – Windows is still too hard for the average user to upgrade successfully without any blood pressure raising events. You’re better off buying a pre-configured Vista box and then paying a professional to migrate your important data over.
There are very few compelling reasons to rush out and implement Vista. In the long-term, it will change the way some users work, especially with the new sidebar. But if you don’t have a lot of free time on your hands, wait at least a year before you make the switch. By then, Microsoft will have worked out many of the irksome little things that are going to break if you install your fresh new copy of Vista today.
UPDATE: Microsoft tech support has become less and less coherent and competent with every passing year. My work PC, which seemed to handle the upgrade to Vista Ultimate fine on first glance, has decided it needs to create me a new profile every single time I log into the company domain. This results in a complete inability to retain any personalized settings, browser favorites, document history and so on. Many of the highly touted new features, such as feed lists and custom widgets don’t work when the user profile aspect of Windows breaks. So far, I’ve been either on hold or arguing with customer "service" representatives for about two hours. Microsoft won’t acknowledge that I am a customer entitled to free support incidents and keep trying to get me to pay for the call, although we already have an agreement with them for "free" support. The automatons on the other end of the phone tell me they cannot find a record of my existence in their database, and that’s pretty much where we end all progress. I can log on and see my existence in Microsoft’s system on-line but its own employees cannot.
Reiterate – if your Windows XX version works now, DO NOT UPGRADE if you a) have little free time or b) get easily frustrated or c) don’t want to pay for extra support or d) any of the above.
Update II: I got the issue with my profiles in Vista fixed by using the networking wizard. In the meantime, I wasted about three hours on the phone with Microsoft trying to get them to assist me. They finally acknowledged that I was entitled to free support but I fixed the problem myself by experimenting while I was waiting to get that support.