Smart, meet beautiful. That's what it says after installing Vista and upon going to the welcome screen. The question just begs to be asked. So, what do we have here? A new operating system that boasts of heightened security, a snazzy interface, and some easter eggs still undiscovered. Microsoft said Vista is more secure than previous versions. How secure is it? Well, for one thing, a friend of mine tried installing it and it couldn't connect at all to an existing home network. It couldn't connect to any network. So it IS secure. Heh. Anyway, what makes it more secure is that it requires you to validate or register your copy of Vista online. And if you can't (e.g. you're having problems activating the software within 30 days of installation because of your crappy PLDT Internet connection, or your copy of Vista is already reported as a pirated copy yet you paid for a legit one, etc.), Vista will go in to a reduced functionality mode automatically. Which renders your machine completely useless (e.g. Aero is disabled, etc.). So it is more secure than previous versions. It secures itself from ITSELF. Another thing that might also be a factor to consider if you really want to upgrade to Vista is the minimum system requirements. Yes, it will run on a machine with the minimum system requirements. But even when it's idle, the RAM is being used 50% of the time. 512MB of RAM as a minimum system requirement? Are you selling software or RAM? So before getting pulled into the fray because of Vista's stunning, and I do mean stunning, looks, try looking into an alternative operating system. Apple's OS X is much better looking, as always. So is their stability. But you also have to have their hardware. If you're short in cash, try looking into Ubuntu Linux. It's free, it looks good, and it's user-friendly too. You may have guessed that this author is not looking forward to using Windows Vista. I'm looking forward to the day when 90% of computer users finally waking up to a brand new day, free of Windows. Ref: http://www.playfuls.com/news_06076_Windows_Vistas_Nasty_Surprises.html