Bill has RTMed his latest assault vying for world domination. After being asked what I thought about it, as if someone really cares what I think, I thought I would put a few comments here.

Vista is pretty. I don’t like it. I am a command line guy mostly. I can work faster with the CLI than I can with the GUI. Will I switch to Vista? Probably. Why? Well supporting Bill’s messes keeps the lights on around here.

Office 2007 is something I can live without for sure. I rarely do any Office support, just occasional questions. I do have Office 2003 Premium, but I am using Open Office more and more. It’s less of a damper on my systems as well. Last week I had two Word docs open and had the Task Manager up since a script I wrote had proclaimed itself king of the system and took over the box. Yes, I do use Windows about 45% of time. After decapitating the script, I noticed that Word had a claim on 84Megs of memory! For two documents that had nothing but text. No wonder my games suck with Outlook open. I probably will get Outlook. After trying numerous other email programs, I can’t seem to get any that I like more. Outlook isn’t perfect, but you can extend its capability very easily to suit your wishes.

Exchange 2007 is a mixed bag for me. I make more dough supporting Exchange than any other single application. I love some of the Linux options like Scalix. Nevertheless, I MUST continue on the Exchange train. Some folks already asking about it and when do I recommend they upgrade. I like its capabilities, especially unified messaging. As one who has a virtual PBX system, something that could increase my capabilities would be awesome. I also like that you can control that beast using the PowerShell CLI interface. As those click wizards are already amiss that some things must be done with the CLI. That helps me to keep my edge. Especially those who are fearful of eseutil and other command line only Exchange items.

I do wonder how these things will fare coming after Christmas. No right-minded consumer would buy Exchange for the home, except me. But, who says I am right-minded anyway. Vista and Office will have missed the Christmas wave; therefore, their launch will be tied to the gulag. That’s where Bill tortures government agencies and companies worldwide to upgrade or risk being cut off from the goodness of support. It’s worked before when sales were lagging. Don’t doubt for one minute that it won’t be back!