I recently purchased a laptop and it has Vista. While I have been playing with it I have notice a few things different from Windows. Most of these things I encountered as I played around, others I discovered while I searched the Internet for issues or fixes to my problems.

Problems requiring downloads or work arounds:

VPN -Vista has some problems with VPN. The most notable, users can have some problems connecting. So if you VPN into your university's or hospital's network, you might have some problems. Download Microsoft's update for Vista and VPN to fix the issue.

FireWires - Digital cameras, external hard drives, old iPods, use a FireWire to plug into your computer. If you let your computer go to sleep, when it wakes up it freaks out and gives you a cryptic "DRIVER_POWER_STATE_FAILURE" error message. To fix this problem download an update from Microsoft.

iTunes - If you use iTunes 7.1 and have Vista, do NOT click on the icon that allows you "safely remove hardware." If you do, your iPods files could get corrupted. To fix this problem, just unplug your iPod from your computer after it is done syncing. If you "safely removed your hardware" and ended up corrupting your precious pod, don't freak out there is a fix. First plug it back in to the computer, withinin iTunes go to the iPod's summary panel, click Restore. This should fix it, then unplug it from computer to remove it. Thankfully, I read about this problem before it happened to me, or I would have had to run outside away from the kids to let out some choice words. Because I am a nitwit and I would have been caught in a vicious loop of restoring my songs then "safely removing my hardware" and corrupting them again, only to restore them and corrupt them repeatedly. It would not have occured to me that by "safely removing the hardware" that I was actually corrupting my files.

The look and feel:

Desktop - The first thing I noticed is the start button usually in the left hand corner of my Windows desktop is gone, it has been replaced with the Microsoft Windows logo. Microsoft calls this little window bubble "the pearl," which if you are like me and fan of the show Lost, "the pearl" means something entirely different. The menu list we all know from Windows has been replaced by a tree like structured menu and has a built in Search where you can just start typing and Vista will search for files, programs, etc.

Windows - The window frames appear clear or "frosted glass like" similar to the pearl. The frames are a little larger than the frames on Windows and you can sort of see through them and see your desktop or whatever is behind the window. This design feature is kind of nice if you are somebody who likes to have multiple windows open at a time. The "see through" frame allows you to see other windows on the desktop and larger frame allows you more space to click on them and toggle between windows.

Sidebar - The sidebar is a transparent screen that resides on the side your desktop and allows you drop in various things (Microsoft calls them "gadgets") such as a clock, calendar, notepad, weather, news updates, Internet radio streams. Vista comes with a set of gadgets but you can download more from Windows Vista Gadget Gallery. I am not sure if I like the Sidebar or not. Part of me thinks of it as visual clutter the other part of me likes to have those things easy to see and accessible.

Internet Explorer 7 - Vista comes with IE 7 which is better than IE 6, but in the end it's like putting a pretty dress on a pig, underneath it is still a pig. Firefox is still much better than IE.

So far that is what I have discoverd for now. As I learn more, I will post more.