Welcome to the ribbon, a context sensitive 'device' that places all of the functions for a variety of tasks all in one neat line. It is certainly different, a major step away from previous versions of Office. Is it better? Absolutely it is. For those new to MS Office, it has the same learning curve as any very able office application. For the well versed, a few minutes spent exploring will reveal that the ribbon is actually very good. The four major Office elements, Word, Excel, PowerPoint and Access all benefit from it.

Highlighting text and selecting a new font now sees the text on the page change as one passes the mouse over the font list. In PowerPoint, one can see changes to slide animations in the same way. Each application has features like this that make changing the look of document elements so much easier. No more does one have to make changes, assess the damage and then find the function again to make another stab. Running the mouse over some of the functions also brings up a small box with a half meaningful explanation of the function. The 'File' menu has been replaced by a Vista style button, called the Office button, I believe. A nice little touch to make the flagship Office products match the flagship OS.

The default colour of each application is a pastel blue, giving a much softer look than the hard edged predecessors, and is much easier on the eyes in terms of relected light off of the screen. All Office applications are still feature packed, a mark of all Office versions since the suite first appeared.

Ok, so we have this very smart new look with an easy to use interface. The downside is that not all Office applications have the ribbon. One of the major factors with MS Office was the 'integrated' look to all of the elements. While WordPerfect and Lotus were obviously cobbling together whatever they could buy in, MS Office applications all had the same look and feel to them. This is no longer true, and may be a cause of consternation with some users.

Pricing and place also set it above the majority of home users, although there is a version to suit most. A look at the website URL provided gives a 'what's in the box' view.

http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/products/FX101635841033.aspx

As I discover more about Office 2007, I wil revisit this topic. For now, I am still in the early stages of finding out all about it, but my first impression of Office 2007 is overall good.

Internet Explorer 7 and Windows MediaPlayer 11 are twins in as much as both have lost some functionality present in earlier versions. At the same time, both have features not present in earlier versions.

First on the block - IE7.. I will say here and now that it works well for me. I had no problems installing it or running it in XP. The 'tab' feature has replaced the 'stacking' of open browser windows on the OS task bar, and gives more meaningful names to each. The layout is fine for me, and I have no problem looking at or entering URL's one line above where the address bar used to be.

Priinting web pages has improved beyond all recognition, the onus for how it all gets onto a regular 'potrait' likeness being taken away from printer drivers that couldn't do it anyway without being forced to landscape printing.

I also like the way that favourites and history are handled. The popout box is way more convenient than having either pinned to the side (still possible, by the way). For people who have MSN or similar home pages set, pinning fills up the nasty empty spaces that would otherwise be there in any resolution higher than 640 x 480. My ISP is Sympatico, and I have a customised home page that fits very nicely thank you. Pinned history and favourites columns were not welcome on my home page, and the new 'way' works very well for me.

For a utility that has settings most likely to be kept as default, I can't see why anybody mourns the loss of the taskbar or its positioning. It is still possible to have it showing, but what is the point? The Tools button, 'ere users should care to look, does it all.

IE6 did not always display pages well, and sometimes not at all. If IE7 fails to display something, I put it down to '403/4' just as I did with IE6 and then look for alternatives. It is no big deal for the most part, unless, of course, one's own website does not show. C'est la guerre.

Windows MediaPlayer 11, as far as I can see, is not able to produce a simple list of media contained on any hard drive. Then again, I don't remember being able to do that with WMP 10 either. Again no big problem. I had already changed my modus operandii to initiating WMP from files rather than opening WMP and selecting from the less than useful and really quite irritating listing. It works for me, saving me having to store 'genre' info re. stuff I listen to or watch. For me, WMP 11 is like Windows Picture and Fax Viewer. As long as it plays and shows, do I really care?

I am of the belief that WMP 11 consumes more reources than ever before, and this would not be a problem but for the fact that Vista file movements seem to take precedence over my health and temper, rendering music to jittery at best, and completely lost at worst.

If either of these programs have any other underlying faults, then I am blissfully unaware of them. I find that with most things, a slight change in approach overcomes annoyances.

Vista has been running on this computer almost flawlessly. The interface is slick, looks good, and performance in 'max' mode is every bit as good as Xp was in Classic mode. Some driver issues still remain, but manufacturers are promising a better future on or after release to the general public come Jan 30, 2007.

Moving and copying files appears to be slow, as much down to watching the green bar crawl along its track. However, I am not fully convinced that XP was much quicker. Initial XP performance in this area appeared swift, but was invariably followed by the 'x minutes remaining' message. In some cases, Vista is taking minutes too, but not as many in reality.

Application compatibility is always an issue when moving to a new operating system. Apart from one or two smaller and non-mission critical programs (Nero not being one of them), I have had no real problems. Admittedly, I am using MS Office 2007, around which most of my work is centered, but I do have other aging applications that work just fine.

Arcsoft's Photostudio 5, supplied with my aging Canon Scanner, has no problems running in Vista, and while it is no Adobe Photoshop, its facilities are as much as I generally requiire. Likewise, Arcsoft's Photobase 3 works well too.

PrimoPDF, now at version 3, is still the best way to create .pdf files without the need to pay for the full Adobe Acrobat, and works with any program capable of sending output to a printer.

AVG anti-virus (free version) is good protection, and incredibly good value. Some seem to think that free versions are not what they should be, but I have found that running anything else as a check has found no more than AVG does. I did try Avast but hate the interface, reminding me of the awkward and difficult to use early PowerDVD offerings.

Spyware is addressed by the incumbent Windows Defender, and SpywareBlaster, a program that prevents by immunization rather than an attempted cure after the horse has bolted.

Prior to installing Vista, I did something that I said I would never do. I overclocked my processor. The Biostar board installed has an three setting easy option overclock feature, and I have set it at 'V6 tech' which apparently gives a 5-10% performance increase. The two settings above this are 'V8' and 'V12', neither of which appeal to Vista, forcing a reboot every time. One thing that I did notice is that while cpu perfomance was raised, memory performance was slightly degraded, 166mhz reducing to a reported 134mhz. I run 3gb of RAM in this machine, so am not unduly worried by the cycle reduction.

Anyway, so far, so good. I am suitably impressed enough that I only run the parallel XP Pro installation to do updates. XP has now become my backup in the event of major hard drive failure.

.. that is the question. Whether t'is nobler to suffer the annoyingly constant 'are you sure' popups, or .......... hark, do I hear shouts of 'get off' emanating from the cheap seats? .... or just turn the damn thing off ........... OK, OK, I'll quit if UAC quits.

I have no doubt that in a commercial setting, UAC will be a boon to system admins. I have no doubt that UAC will be boon to some families. To me, a single user, a dedicated machine, and a firm believer in the practice of 'safe hex', UAC is a PITA, and I am glad that the facility can be turned off.

However, turning UAC off also sends IE7 into unprotected mode. Why do I have to suffer being asked if I really want to move a jpeg file from Mike's Documents to an archive folder on another drive in order to get protection from some as yet unknown threat via the web? Thank heavens for SpywareBlaster.

Aero Glass works better on light surfaces. Dark fonts on the title bars do not show well on dark desktop backgrounds. I have a darkish desktop background. I run Aero Glass purely because I can.

The sidebar is more interesting. The clock has less functions than Win 3.1 clock had. The contacts book doesn't auto update when an entry is put into it. The calendar is ok for me as I can rarely remember what day it is. RSS feeds I look at from time to time. The yellow notes are well worth keeping the sidebar running. Other gadgets have little appeal to me. So, I have four elements running, and space for a fifth. For now, I use the area to keep a small WordPad window open, useful for pasting info from web pages for later perusal.

I make no apologies for not being enthused about either.

It became more apparent in the next few hours that I would probably have to keep my parallel installation of XP for a while. The list of programs that reported compatibility problems or simply wouldn't install started to grow.

First casualties were the support programs for my DVD/CD writer. PowerDVD 6 and Nero 6 do not play ball. Vista supports the playing of DVDs, so losing PowerDVD didn't matter. Alex Feinman has an ISO utility that works extremely well, so part of Nero wasn't missed. However, I do like Nero, and will have to consider buying a new version or wait for a Vista compatible OEM and get it with the purchase of a second DVD/CD writer (a cheap option).

I also had two programs, Stellarium and Celestia, neither of which were used much. Celestia still does work, but is uninspiring and allows one to map the location and movement of 'Deep Space Nine'. Too much. Stellarium installs but will not hold location, shows on my main display, while blanking out the second. Not good.

Stickies is a freebie 'Post-it' notes style program, and is presently at version 5.2b. The author is working on a Vista compatible version 6 which may be available before the end of the year. They are network friendly, and can be e-mailed too. Great for sending messages to other users on the network advising of router reboots et al.

My Halo game definitely will not run, but I think that Age of Empires 3 does, although I have yet to install it on the RTM production machine. CFS 3 is also an unknown as yet. To be honest, I am still struggling to get through all of the levels in 'Purble Place'  so not too worried about some of my other games.

Vista has been installed on my computer now since the morning of November 18th, along with Office Professional 2007, and all is surprisingly good. Some of the drivers available for devices are not quite what they could be, but everything works.

My Canon Lide 30 scanner was tried on RC1 during testing, and worked no problem. The original Canon CD was used to install drivers, and a visit to the Canon website gotten me the latest driver and Tool box version that was ever released. The HP 5150 printer is not connected directly to Vista, but it does work via my home network.

Internal devices fared less well. The MSI NX6600 VTD256E video card runs, but the driver installed is basic and does lose touch with the system on occasion. Nvidia will no doubt release something more meaningful in time, so for now I accept less than sparkling performance and the basic Vista handling of dual screen set ups.

Realtek Sound has also had it's ups and downs. The Vista driver did not work well at all. There was sound, but also a popup error message to the effect that the sound driver was not compatible with Vista, and suggesting a visit to 'realtek.com/tw'. To some degree, I could live with that, but a nasty side effect was where opening Control Panel and attempting to see the lower icons resulted in Control Panel really screwing up to the point where it was unusable. I am presently using the Realtek '6183' driver and all is well.

As with any new OS, there are going to be driver issues, especially where one is in a position to install and run way before the offficial release. For me, Vista has done well, and I like what I see.