Last Wednesday Microsoft finally released a public beta version of its next operating system, Windows Vista.  If you haven't heard or seen anything about Vista yet, then do yourself and favor and check it out!  Vista looks great!  It looks like all these fancy new Web 2.0 sites that a popping up on the net.  Rounded corners, drop shadows, transparacy effects, etc.

I signed up for this beta program so I can download and test out Vista for myself.  I've had Vista installed and running on my computer for about 24 hours now and love it.  I installed it on a second partition for my hard drive so I can now dual boot between Windows XP and Vista.  Installation was fairly painless.  It still took it a good 45-60 minutes to install.  Once installed it took about another hour to get all the drivers and devices installed and running.

Almost everything installed without any issues.  The only problem I had was with my Creative Audigy 2 sound card.  Downloading, installing, uninstalling, rebooting, re-installing, etc of its Vista beta drivers was a pain, but I finally got it working.  The only issue is that I still don't get surround sound on my 5.1 speakers.  I can only get stereo working.  But this is not a Vista but rather a Creative issue.  Nvidia's beta drivers installed and are working perfectly.

The whole operating system just feels so streamlined.  Vista loads a good 30-45 seconds faster than XP and looks so much better.  I also downloaded and installed Office 2007 beta.  It's another public beta program that you can sign up for and try out.

One of the coolest feature I found in Vista so far is its Speech Recognition program.  If you have a microphone on your computer then you can use this program to talk to your computer.  No more mouse or keyboard interaction needed.  Once activated and can say "Start" "Open Microsoft Word" and start dictating my document.  It's truly great.

If you are interested in trying out Vista or Office 2007 then check out these following site to help get started >> Windows Vista Beta 2 and Office 2007 Beta.  I also added some screen shots of Vista in my gallery.  Check them out here.  I'll post more info as I get more hands on experience with Vista.