Guys,
Vista RTM came out a couple of days ago.. In fact I'm testing the final Business version now, however without Opus. Not suprisingly, Opus still has all those issues under the final version (broken installer, double-clicking a folder gets intercepted by Windows Explorer etc)
So Opus developers, get going! 
It's really a pain in the back using windows without Opus!
I'm just curious - why you are you so keen to move to Vista? From what I've seen it offers little in the way of real, useful features.
Well, there are always people out there who get excited about new stuff 
Useful features is what third party OSs are for... you know, like the Linux flavored RPMs.
I have the RC1 DVD and RC2 downloaded. I have not installed either yet--too much on my plate.
There is one Vista feature I'm looking forward to-- The new Standby and Hibernate, which are combined together in Windows Vista.
This should allow me to safely configure a customer's PCs such that it wakes up at different times during the night to perform regular maintenance functions that a customers is not likely to perform: Windows updates, virus scans, and data backup (perhaps in the future maybe even hard drive defragmentation).
I currently do this in Windows XP, but only for myself and a couple of close customers (those who are friends and don't mind being guinea pigs). Sometimes this has proven problematic. To be fair, many issues center around USB devices and their drivers and would likely still exist in Vista (perhaps even more such issues due to Vista incompatible device drivers). But I expect the process will be much safer as Vista will first try to recover from Standby (i.e. from RAM), and failing that, from a Hibernation file saved on the hard drive. Windows Vista saves all data to a Hibernation file, before going into S3 Standby. This is very critical when considering power outages (with no UPS backup).
Windows XP Hibernation works well, however you cannot automatically wake the PC from it, except through a BIOS or NIC card wakeup setting. This is not ideal if you have several maintenance jobs with a significant time gaps between them (because you can only guess at how long each job will actually take). The PC will go back to into Standby after each task, based on power configuration settings. However, BIOS can usually only be set to wake up the PC at one time every night. Windows Task Scheduler can be scheduled to wake the PC at several different times and on different nights.
Ideally the PC is only awake while it is working, then goes back to sleep 15 minutes after completing its maintenance. It then stays asleep until it wakes up again to perform more maintenance, or the user comes in to use it. Otherwise, the PC remains in Standby/Hibernate mode.
Not having looked at Vista yet (except for the pretty DVD case sitting here in front of me, and reading lots of documents), this is the only thing I've heard about that really excites me that might justify the $200.00 US/license upgrade cost.
I have downloaded IE7 and took a look at it. I'm not really crazy about it at all. I think it is a decided step backward (in terms of the GUI), and I'm sure it will break more things than it fixes. so it is much ado about nothing. Besides, one can acquire this piece of crap free to use with Windows XP right now anyway. The same is true of Windows Media Player 11.
Since I'm a registered Microsoft Partner, I think I'm just going to pay $400/year for the action pack for the purpose of PC building (which gets me licenses of all the products I could retail for the purpose of learning how to install them and to show case them to customers).
I maintain my personal Windows XP licenses on my personal production systems. When I upgrade these, it will be only after I can find working Vista drivers for all of my hardware, and can produce an unattended installation DVD for Vista.
Currently, I can re-install my entire production Windows XP system without human intervention using a single DVD-ROM, which includes all of my hardware drivers, and many of my production applications. If I installed all of this licensed software manually--end-to-end with no mistakes and having each CD ready and waiting--it would require over 40 hours of my time (not counting re-configuring the software). My unattended DVD can do nearly all this on its own, overnight while I sleep' leaving me with just a couple hours of manual installation and re-configuration. True disaster recovery.
In many ways Windows Vista is pointless:
No Visual styles it's Aero Glass or nothing.
Firefox for browsing
Dopus for file management
Software apps for everything else and most are better then built in XP/Vista solutions.
The only thing that really got on my nerves about Windows XP were the dialog boxes that couldn't be resized or saved states.
I get sick of making a small dialog bigger so I can find files. The Office 2003 open save dialog was pretty damn good and I wish Vista had just used them instead of the over slick designed ones they choose.
Another annoying Vista 'feature' is that all the settings have been moved all over the place. Why not make a single dialog box and put most of the things in there ? Anyways it's annoying to go looking for where they have moved things.
I don't think the arguments against Vista are valid. This is the next major Windows version that we're talking about. Most XP users will upgrade, and ALL the new PC's sold after January 2007 will come with Vista.
Supporting Vista is not avoidable. Currently, DOpus can't even be installed on Vista. I find it sad that the developers are choosing to scold users about why they are so excited about Vista, instead of trying to make their product compatible.
What is urgently needed is a version with a compatible installer, rather than a discussion about Vista's merits.
Where did you ever see an example of this?
The only responses I've seen from the developers of Opus ref Vista is that it is their policy to wait until the new OS is officially released before they begin support of it.
[quote="aydc"]Most XP users will upgrade, and ALL the new PC's sold after January 2007 will come with Vista.
[/quote]
Yeah, like enterprise users are jumping in in thousands...
The only good thing about Vista is that RAM prices will drop.
Hopefully there will be an option to install XP with Vista license.
If I want (imo) dubious aesthetics, I watch manga.
X.