Vista Beta 2 installed last night on a Wakizachi. One word... WOW!
Visually, this OS is awesome. No problems with drivers at all as far as working, although Vista is telling me my performance is suffering due to driver updates that are needed (because I am using XP variants). Right now, I am not worried about it. I am just glad everything functions as it should without ANY hassles!
Couple things: Vista includes a "performance utility" that you can see the things that are slowing your computer down. It said for me that the drivers were slowing down windows and effecting my score. I wanted to point out a few of the ratings here (in this image):
* T2500 2.0 Ghz Core Duo receives the highest 5 / 5 rating, ok that's fine.
* 2.0 GB memory recevies a 4.4 rating, that should tell you how much of a pig this OS is.
* 100 Gig 7,200 rpm hard drive receives a 3.6 rating? Ok, it is only the largest 7,200 rpm notebook drive you can get! I understand this is just a dumb calculation, but it is my worst score!
* x1600 GPU receives a 4.0 out of 5. Wow, what a GPU hog! Should show you why integrated graphics machines are being blown out at bargain basement prices.
* 256 Video Graphic Memory only receives a 4.6 rating also! Wow! (see note above)
Interestingly enough, this produces a performance rating of 3? I guess the driver issue is bringing me down more than I though. Obviously it isn't geared toward notebooks, but since people can think outside of Microsofts silly algorithm, you can see that the Wakizachi is 100% Vista Aero ready!
I like the new updates, and can't wait until it's out. I would be interested to know a pricing model for Vista though. I have read $99, which is pretty reasonable I think. More than that is just lining MS's already fat pockets.