digitalBush

I took the plunge and upgraded my work laptop to Vista. I've been mostly pleased so far.
First, here are the things I like:

• The Interface - It's pleasing to the eye. I switched my window border to black and I like it much better than the default. My laptop runs glass fairly well, and the transparent effects are aesthetically pleasing.
• The Start Menu - First off, I like the fact that it doesn't say "Start" anymore. Also, the integrated searching is VERY nice. It's only been 2 days, but so far I don't feel the need to stick Launchy or Google Desktop on this machine
• Descriptions - Thank the Lord! Microsoft finally got rid of that annoying "My" garbage. Now "My Computer" is appropriately named "Computer"

Now for the things I dislike:

• Initial Setup - The first things I turned off are the UAC, Savepoints, and Windows Defender. I noticed a huge gain in speed and usability(I'm looking at you UAC) from just these changes.
• Drivers - Actually this has been the best Windows driver experience I've had. However, it's still not where it should be. I have an nVidia GeForce Go5200 with 64M of RAM. The stock windows driver worked with glass, but was very choppy. Also I got some weird flickering with my laptop docked. I went on over to LaptopVideo2Go.com and tried a few of driver sets out there. Now my graphics are smooth, but text rendering appears to suffer. Also, I tried the absolute latest version that they had and it crashed a few times. I settled on the 98.09 version and I'm somewhat satisfied. I think my finger pointing here is more toward nVidia.
• Effects - I turned off the minimize and maximize effects. I just don't like waiting on an animation before I can use a window.

I'm sure as I use this more I'll have a few more things to add to both lists. I think the specs for my machine are the bare minimum required to run Vista. My Windows Experience Index is a 2.0 because of my graphics card. Other specs include a Pentium M 2.0Ghz and 1G of RAM.