With the 64-bit version of Vista, my monitor resolution was changed nearly every time I restarted the machine. Each and every time, I had to reinstall the manufacturer's drivers to get the best resolution which happens to be 1680 x 1050. But when I shut down and restarted, the screen would generally revert back to a much lower resolution. Take it from me, it is annoying.

It is really difficult to find genuine 64-bit drivers and applications; Vista has the necessary libraries for 32-bit apps and I noticed that most of what I installed were the x86 versions. So much for 64-bit computing. BTW, I've been running the 64-bit port of Debian for the AMD since March 2006.

Towards the end of my evaluation, the nag screens about activation started appearing. Of course, with the installed software being a genuine copy (that sounds like a contradiction, what?) I could have gone through with it but I had had enough.

A couple of days before I planned to end the experiment, I ran a packet sniffer for about two hours, leaving the PC idle. I was left wondering why packets need to be sent to wwwbaytest2.microsoft.com and data.tvdownload.microsoft.com. Can someone from Microsoft give me an answer?

I had two more experiments to carry out - I asked my wife to watch a DVD which I had got for her, a murder mystery sold by the Agatha Christie estate. If anything is legit, then this DVD is. But midway through the film, Windows Media player stopped with a message that some copyright or the other had been violated!!! To pacify my wife, the next day I had to buy a new DVD player and install the old one in our bedroom so that she could watch the movie to completion there; like all old houses in Melbourne, our lounge is rather cold during winter.

The final challenge I gave to my son - I asked him to try and crash the system. He was able to achieve it in about seven minutes. His description: "...was browing, pressed 'show desktop', waited, pressed again... waited... hit ctrl, alt, delete, task manager showed up, hit cancel and the whole thing stuffed up." He had a couple of choice things to say as well but after two months of life with a MacBook what he said wouldn't stand scrutiny in parliament.

I note with amusement that Microsoft has now set up a "fact-rich" program to try and persuade people to move to Vista. As the old song goes, "when will they ever learn?"

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