I guess Vista isn't so bad

So said the principal on whose desk I rolled out my first Vista desktop. We've given a few users laptops with Vista on them, but this is the first large-scale rollout with the latest and greatest from Microsoft. Most of us who have used it know that, in fact, it isn't too bad. There aren't too many people who love it, but regular users find that it's perfectly fine.

It does, in fact, have some advantages over XP. Certainly, it's built-in driver database and ability to grab drivers from the Web works fairly well (it actually recognized a mopier that XP always fussed about printing to). The management of various network connections works well, too. If it would just stop asking me if I was sure that I really wanted to do the things I asked it to do, I'd be a pretty happy camper.

My biggest problem with Vista (aside from dismal driver support at the outset and merely tolerable performance on a variety of machines) has always been that, after seven years, the best Redmond could come up with was merely tolerable? It's good to know, however, that I can roll out a system to a user who is pretty average in terms of his computer abilities, give him his bookmarks and Office back, and have him running on a system with improved security out of the box.

I'm too much of a Mac and Linux fan to completely overlook all of its flaws, but what really matters is the productivity and happiness of my users. We'll see as this rollout extends beyond a few users this week, but, as I've been saying, it's time to let go of XP, so here goes. How much training will I need for my more phobic users? Maybe a lot, but for those willing to take the plunge, Vista really isn't too bad.

One quick note - it took me a bit of Googling to find this today. If you have a Windows 2003 domain controller to which you are trying to join Vista clients, be sure to disable IPv6 traffic on the network interface. After you restart, you shouldn't have any troubles getting connected to the domain.