Vista is the priciest OS Microsoft has ever produced. To make things worse, and to gouge the public even more, it's splintered into a plethora of flavors, from the uber-gimpy Basic edition, to the pull out all the stops Ultimate Edition, with no fewer than 2 more versions in between.

I personally see this as Microsoft sticking it back to their customers for having borne the brunt of all these anti-trust settlements.

Every copy of Vista contains the data to install the Ultimate edition. Only the license code limits the features you realize. To this end, you can pay to upgrade it online. It doesn't nag you to do this, but finding this "feature" is more than easy.

IMHO, Microsoft should have made the FULL install version of Vista Ultimate $199 retail. That's plenty pricey still, and is the most compatible and convenient. If a customer so wished, I think it's not hard at all to get a feature-reduced install if that's what you wanted.

I have Vista on an iMac running Boot Camp. It's Intel Core 2 Duo based, so it runs well - but definitely needs the Vista version of drivers for everything in the machine. Non-Vista drivers either mean a piece of hardware is no longer recognized at all, or at least performs less functionally than it did in XP/MCE.

Vista's increased anal retentiveness makes you want to turn UAC off (User Access Control). This stops the double-checks for authentication running administrative tasks, and as well running programs that may access data not tagged as belonging to your account. In short, it brings the security level back to the XP level, maybe back to Windows 98SE level. Creates way too inviting a petri dish for the worms, virii, and cracks that still exist for Windows security breeching.

Even so, the garden variety user, faced with the frustrations of all these extra clicks basically saying, "Just do what I asked you to, dammit!" will find out about UAC and how to turn it off, switch it off, and live in blissful ignorance.

Point being, Microsoft needed to find a more intelligent tool for security than what Vista has in place with UAC.

This only leaves one question: Could Callsfire's belly stretch big enough for you to swallow Bill Gates's ego? I've heard tell that the fact both Gates and Jobs co-exist in this universe is proof space is in fact infinite.

*chuckles* Thank you for the comment. While the UAC is annoying I understand the purpose however mine is more driver related than anything. Hopefully I can get it to play nice with my wonderful 3D software soon so I can do more art. Untill then things are on hold.