As previously noted, I will not do an extensive review of pre-RC1 (build 5536) as RC1 (labeled build 5600) has been released. I don’t have a copy of it yet, but I’ll be receiving one soon. This review of Vista pre-RC1 will cover the basics and point out some key notes of interest.

Test Environment
Dell Inspiron 9100
Pentium 4 3.0GHz Hyperthreading
1GB RAM
ATi Radeon 9700 Mobility (128MB video memory)

Installation
A long time ago Microsoft said that the new installations would be fast. It seemed as though no progress had been made in previous builds (I recall one build where there was actually a screen saying that the current operation may “take up to an hour or more”). pre-RC1 delivered on this promise fortunately. Within 35 minutes my installation was complete and I was in a Vista environment.

First run
After the installation is complete, you are prompted to enter your name, create an account, set up your workgroup/domain information, choose a background, and set the time (all the basics that were scattered throughout the XP setup). Upon first login a Performance Rating Tool runs, essentially rating your computer in various areas (CPU performance, video performance). While this test runs (mine was probably 6-8 minutes), small marketing messages appear at the bottom, one of which seemed almost too Apple-like (”Smart, meet beautiful.”). In Beta 2, my computer was a solid “1″. Now my computer rates a respectable (?) 3.8 with the video card as the bottleneck. To my surprise, after that test my desktop appeared and everything just worked. All my drivers were there except my audio drivers. And those were found by Windows Update which ran automatically after Windows finished installing.

Various little finds
* Internet Explorer 7 will prompt you that the website you are running is attempting to create a scripted prompt. Before it would just say that a popup was blocked.
* New gadgets added, including a sweet weather gadget and an updated RSS gadget.
* The age-old Windows mouse scheme is different. The mouse scheme hasn’t changed since Windows 95, so this is big. The mouse pointer is now about 90% arrow and 10% tail (a bigger arrow which emphasizes the arrow-ness). Also the hourglass is gone. Yes, it’s gone. Believe it. Replacing it is the default Vista/IE7/Media Center busy sign–a little blue circle that appears to be spinning.
* Unlike Beta 2, icons no longer magically disappear from the desktop.
* The volume control bug from an older build has been fixed.
* A SYSTEM UP TIME COUNTER IN THE TASK MANAGER! Finally!
* The built-in system-wide Windows Search is, simply put, amazing.
* The UAC (User Access Control) prompts are much less irritating and slightly more giving (unlike Beta 2, moving a file on the desktop to your Recycle Bin and then deleting it does not bring up 6 or more prompts and require Administrative privilges).
* There’s now an automatic file backup icon in the system tray. Microsoft is suggesting that–imagine this–backups should be done by everyone! That’s some ground-breaking information right there..

Performance
The performance of this build is amazing. Memory usage has dropped, CPU usage has dropped (14% and still running IE7 and WMP10), the hard drive spins less, my laptop feels cooler, and the fans don’t spin at max constantly. Heck, they’re spinning as much as if XP were installed right now. Things appear faster. The OS feels smoother. It works, and it works very well. An excellent leap forward here.

Summary
While Microsoft does call this a “Release Candidate” (or at least a pre-RC), it seems a little lacking in some areas. There’s still no boot screen, no new Vista audio files are in yet (excluding a different shut down sound, but I can’t imagine the new one will stay), and some menus or windows are still too XP-like. These are small inconsistencies though. As a release alltogether, I love it. It’s very stable, very fast, and very usable.

I know that in the past I’ve been a little fast with adopting new changes (example: XP Service Pack 2), but I feel I can say this is certainty: At this point I will not be turning back to Windows XP as my main operating system on my laptop. Vista pre-RC1/RC1 will not expire until May 2007 and Microsoft will fully support the OS even through RTM (Release To Manufacturing). There’s just too many things that I find horribly lacking in XP when compared to Vista that I can’t make that turn back. It’s only a matter of time before my desktop switches to Vista as well.

The only reason I’ll remove pre-RC1 is to install RC1 when I get it (hopefully next week at the earliest).

~Jaker