To help you keep your sanity or what little is left
When it comes to Vista do the following. Go to the nearest Gun Shop and buy a 44 Magnum and 1 round of Ammo. Then when the cooling off time has passed take it to work put the 1 round into the chamber unlock the safeties and hold the weapon to your head and pull the trigger. It will painless and you'll not have the constant feeling of bashing your head against a brick wall that you will have testing Vista. You'll never want to deploy it as it stands at the moment as it makes some old Command Line Unix look brilliant.
Because of all the improved security you can only share the Public Folder on C Drive not great for networking but excellent for Home Users who only have the one computer. Mind you XP wasn't much better when it was first released as practically nothing worked with it either.
But what you need to do is load any Mission Critical Business Applications and then if they actually load see if they will run. Most will not so at this point in time it's not a viable option. Even the Accounting Plug in for Office 2007 isn't Vista Compatible as it runs on SQL 2005 which isn't Vista Compatible so while it looks great on XP if fails miserably on Vista.
As things stand XP is going to be around for a long time to come as even Dell who was only selling Vista Versions are now realising that the market isn't there and is again offering XP as an option to new buyers.
By all means if the Boss is willing to shell out for a new Test Machine buy one loaded with Vista but make sure that you can get XP Drivers for it before you buy it so that it will be usable before the Tax Cycle runs it's course and the computer gets written off without being used. It's fun to play with and looks nice but doesn't run much that is of any importance to most business and the current Accounting Packages don't work all that well on the thing so that alone is grounds not to deploy.
I got one company using Knoppix by telling them that 1 NB that I was working with was a new version of Windows and had everything that they needed installed. I didn't even give them the Root Password and after 1 month they wanted every computer in the place except for the Reliable Windows Server switched over to this new form of Windows. Of course the Server in question was running Debian so it was literally unbreakable and didn't need constant reboots it just sat there in a corner and was forgotten about till the next power failure.
I had Code Weavers loaded onto the thing to run MYOB which was the only program that they needed that wasn't directly available in Linux I just told them that Knoppix was a Development Version of the Next Windows. Currently as the system has worked perfectly and had no failures they don't want it touched in any form so it's staying the way that it is and they are none the wiser. After all the OS isn't important to the end user it's the software that they need to run that is important so with Open Office they already have 90% of all that they need right there then with FF Web & E-Mail clients are both available for use in Windows and they where using them so they didn't even notice a difference and they do like the ability to have a different program running in each of the 4 Desktops Something that they are looking forward to when they buy their next lot of new computers in about 18 months time.
The last time that M$ rang me attempting to get me to sell them Pirate Software on a complete computer I offered to install a copy of Open Office and that came in under their Max Price limit that couldn't be exceeded but if I had of put on OEM Windows and Office just the cost of the software would have exceeded the price of the entire computer. The give away is when you are rung asked for a price of a new computer but it has to be able to read and write Excel is a dead give away as that means that they need some form of Office and even the base version isn't all that cheap.
Of course the fact that I don't deal with the public and only do Small to Medium Business computers is a dead give away as well but it was just after the third time that I had been reported for selling Pirate XP in a 2,500 Site License Volume License as it had again spat up a message that the Product Key was invalid and the Software XP Pro in this case was a Pirate Copy. This was when WGA was installed and also happened when SP1 & SP2 where installed. The fact that this is a Government Department and I didn't sell them anything but my staff expertise in setting up the network correctly after the Governments IT section refused to deal with them and I was recommended by M$ didn't help. But I know that after proving a Bureaucrat wrong the third report was just out of Spite to get back at me and my company as she had been proved wrong when SP2 was deployed and shown up as not knowing what she was doing. Actually I don't care about these reports as all that happens is that it takes far longer to get a New Product Key out of M$ so they where only hurting themselves and in the case of the last report 2 weeks after the upgrade to SP2 they had every workstation in the place lock up and be unusable. Any Idea just how long it takes to reload 2,500 workstations? 
And of course I wouldn't touch them till I got a replacement Product Key that would work with WGA so they waited 3 weeks because the system admin reported the Pirate Software and I didn't push the case I just rang M$ asked for a new Product Key and gave then the Batch Number off the Original Install CD and the Order Number from M$. The legal department then worked through the mess and eventually sent out a new Product Key to me and not the Department.
Col
But James
All the advertising says that it's better.
Actually it might be an issue if this is the year that the Tax Cycle ends for a company and most of their hardware is going to be replaced I'm sure that the Bean Counters could come up with a compelling reason to deploy Vista. Like make this work or find a new job and get the **** out of here. :^0
Personally I'll be using XP for quite some time yet though.
Col
"Make this work or find a new job". Sure, here is my resignation letter
Hey don't knock VISTA
I'm so happy that it's now available and being deployed by at least one local Government Agency here as I've told them No I'm Not Supporting Vista and Have No Plans To So find Some Other Fool to Do your Work. Even their own IT department will have nothing to do with them.
I got sucked in just after XP was rolled out when it was first available and it was a mess, since then I've been reported to M$ 3 times for selling Pirate Software namely XP Pro as a Volume License for a 2,500 workstation office. It doesn't matter that I didn't sell the Software or even supply any hardware as the government has it's own procurement offices I got the blame when the Volume License Version came up with Invalid Product keys on SP1, SP2 and WGA. With them adopting Vista I've finally been able to get rid of them and the stupid Bureaucrats who work there. I'm actually quite thankful to M$ for getting me out of that mess as I don't need the problems that come along with working there and I'll still be getting payments for work performed for about 2 years they are such good payers that I just don't need the problems associated with supporting their messes. :^0
Col
The Real World
Because of the nature of my job, I WILL upgrade my personal work PC to Vista and try it out with Office 2007... because I've got to evaluate it. I have 40 users who would not be able to get to grips with the likes of Ubuntu if their lives depended on it, and forcing them to stop using Windows would be career suicide.
[Don't talk to me about Macs. Yes, they work well, the OS is great, no virus protection needed, etc. HOWEVER, THEY'RE RIDICULOUSLY EXPENSIVE. I could never talk the senior management into doubling my IT budget. Never. Don't try to argue it with me, I've already tried and failed.]
I think that some of you folks are right on the money: more and more people will try some version of Linux when it becomes clear what a ripoff Vista is and Microsoft completely stops supporting XP.
But there's no way for me to FORCE my user base to switch. They can barely use their PCs *now*! A blanket, company-wide switch to any build of Linux would grind our business to a halt. I'd have to do some serious training sessions for everyone, *starting with senior management* (the biggest Luddites in the whole company).
Even if I could demonstrate the business need / savings / logic / feasability of switching to Linux, they would still balk because they themselves (senior managers) would be terrified of it.
My only option is to do what my friend down South is doing - switch to some build of Linux (probably Ubuntu or Knoppix) on all my servers and leave the client workstations running XP Pro. Of course, that still leaves the question of 'what to do when XP reaches end of life?' and I have to go for a Linux/Vista mix.
The prospect of trying Vista doesn't fill me with joy, honestly, but I'm going to have to get on with it. I'm trying to earn a living here and I can't do it by pushing Linux on a bunch of terrified older users who can barely hold a mouse.
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