Making the Vista and Office 2007 plunge...
I needed to do a laptop rebuild due to it running like pig. I treat my laptop builds badly ... i end up installing all sorts of stuff + loads of betas etc... After a while the whole thing gets bogged down.
I have been running Windows XP SP2 + Office 2007 Beta 1 TR1 for a while now and it has treated me pretty well all things considered. I have logged about 10 bugs that i have found + a feature request that made Beta 2! (so happy about that)
But i felt like i needed more! This year is going to be huge for Microsoft. Some say the biggest year we have ever had in our history. People are totally amped about the Windows and Office releases. It bums me out (usually daily for about 5 mins) that there are people out there who dont share the same passion for Microsoft software that microsofties do. There is always someone out there ragging on how Vista and Office will never eventuate and that Vista is really just a XP SP3.
Well i decided to put that to the test and throw myself even further down the DogFood (using our own Beta software) route and do what we call "DogFooding Hard".
I decided to go with Windows Vista (build 5381 for now) and Office 2007 (Beta 2).
Rebuilding is always a pain in the rear ... so many thing to reinstall etc... but i have narrowed my list down quite a bit. Office (the whole suite of apps), Virtual PC (i do all my dev work in a VPC these days), MSN Messenger, ISA Client & that is pretty much it.
So far it has been almost seamless. Out of the box install got me the new full Aero Glass UI experience with no problems at all. Only manual thing has been needing to hunt two drivers for some things i had plugged in.
This rules! Whoever thinks Vista is XP SP3 is seriously mistaken. My top 5 things i have noticed straight away that totally rock are:
1. Security. no longer running as a local admin.
2. 2. IE 7 + OS + Office RSS integration. Subscribe in IE and consume from Office or Vista. I am using this for all my RSS requirements now.
3. New Glass UI ... totally hot ... finding windows is miles easier and faster
4. Sync Center. Plugged my SmartPhone in & Creative Zen (no more active sync needed)
5. Sidebar. Gadgets are great ... when the collection of them gets bigger there will be a huge market for cool gadgets that let you do all sorts of stuff.
I am dogfooding up to my eyeballs now and loving it. One of the great things about working at Microsoft is the ability to try these kinds of things out early and provide feedback on bugs and features to the teams who builds it.
It is a great time to be working at Microsoft. This is the greatest software company around.