Well I finally downloaded the newest version of Windows Vista titled RC1 (release candidate 1).  I must say right off the bat, this version of Vista is a lot better than the previous version, Beta2.  Installing this new version was a breeze.  I just downloaded the new ISO file from Microsoft, mounted it to a virtual drive and started a fresh installation over my previous Vista partition.

Installation and setup seemed a little bit quicker.  With Beta2 (which I installed twice) the beginning of the installation where it's copying and expanding files from the ISO would take about 45-60 minutes.  But with RC1 it took less than 30 minutes.  Big points right there.

Some other changes I've noticed include a new Loading screen.  With Beta2 you just got a few white bars scrolling across the screen.  Now you get some nice green, gradient bars scrolling across the screen.  Nothing to get too excited about but the color is a lot nicer.

The second thing I noticed when RC1 started up for the first time was the new mouse pointers.  The standard mouse pointer now has a shorter stem and looks much more sleek.  Also the 'waiting' mouse status was changed.  Instead of getting the old and standard hourglass, you now get this nice little swirling circle that looks a lot more modern.  Some very nice touches just to the mouse.

Another change is the Starting and Exiting screens we get with Vista RC1.  Those screen were present in Beta2 but not very pretty.  Especially the text.  It looked kind of old and non-standard with the rest of the OS.  But with RC1 the text is bigger, and smoother looking.  A nice and welcome change.

As for sound, I have noticed some new sounds in RC1 that I don't remember in Beta2.  Of course the same 2000/XP start-up sound is there.  But there were some nice softer sounds that occurred when windows like UAC popped up.  These sounds may of been in Beta2 but I don't recall them.  They now stand out a lot more in RC1 which makes me think they're new.  Also, Creative got some drivers that work a tad better.  I can now get 5.1 surround sound and not just stereo.  When I run the 5.1 speaker test in Vista's control panel all five speakers and the sub make their independent noises.  But in Media Player I only get stereo still.  Weird.

So one of my favorite features in Vista is the new windows switcher.  It's like Alt+tab only you use windowskey+tab instead.  This was in Beta2 but was kind of ugly.  The windows were all jagged and aliased.  But with RC1 they cleaned it up and made all the windows anti-aliased and smooth looking.  I know it's nothing too fancy, but I'm a sucker for gimmicks.  Plus, they added a windows switcher button to the quick launch bar next to the Show Desktop icon.  Very nice, if you had an older keyboard sans Windows Key.

Performance has definitely increased.  I was experiencing some lag time when switching between windows or when I had a few different programs open (IE, WMP, Outlook, IIS7, etc).  But now the system seems quicker.  Alt+tab is just as quick as in XP.  Vista is still a beast though.  With Beta2 my physical memory usage would hover around 1GB, and that's with nothing open or running in the background.  With RC1 though, it's now around 700-800GB.  Still a lot but an improvement.  I haven't installed any of my games yet to see how they perform, but I'm suspecting positive results.

RC1 also has a few new screen savers that I like.  One being called "Bubbles".  It's pretty cool.

Overall Windows Vista RC1 has had some very nice and much needed improvements.  Microsoft is on the right track.  Coming from a design standpoint, Vista rocks and I hate having to go back to XP because now it just looks so clunky.  I still can't get Vista and WMP11 to play OGM video files which is kind of a bummer but maybe these codec guys will eventually get on their feet (UPDATE: The codec guys got on their feet. Check out how to play OGM files in Vista here).  And Adobe Photoshop 9 CS2 still acts weird under Vista.  Half the time it won't open when I click on it and other times it randomly closes with no errors or anything from Vista or Photoshop.  RC1 did come with something I didn't see in Beta2 called "Program Compatibility Wizard".  I really haven't had much time experimenting with this but it did help in one case.  I was trying to install Divx codecs for WMP.  The self installer from Divx ran and said it was successful, but after it closed Vista said the program did not successfully install and asked if I wanted to re-install in Compatibility mode.  I said sure and let it re-install.  This time both the installer and Vista said it was successful.  So that was kind of nice.

But other than a few quirks that are still coming from 3rd party developers, Vista is looking better and better.  Now let's just hope I can afford it when it comes out.