After years of delay, Microsoft has officially launched Microsoft Vista for businesses today. The new OS was formally introduced at a press conference at the NASDAQ stock exchange in New York. Microsoft Office 2007 and Exchange Server 2007 were also launched today – making this the first time all three products appeared at the same time. The consumer versions of Vista and Office 2007 will be available to consumers worldwide starting on January 30th. However if you are a member of MSDN, then you’ve been able to download Vista for several weeks now.

By extending the consumer launch date until January of next year, Microsoft is providing additional time for hardware manufactures to develop and fix their device drivers. If you install Vista now, be prepared for several updates between now and January – most of which will probably be drivers.  In the meantime, many believe businesses will wait some time before deploying Windows Vista. However, should you decide to deploy the OS on your machine, check out this article at PC Magazine detailing the OS at work.

Now if you’re looking for an indepth review of Windows Vista, make sure to check out Paul Thurrott’s SuperSite for Windows multipart review of Vista here. He’s at part 5B now.. and yes there are many more sections to go. It’s a great read though so definitely check it out.

Ah yes – and if you’re interested in the Windows Media Center application under Vista, make sure to visit our own review of the app here.

In other Vista related news, PC Magazine interviews Microsoft’s Jim Allchin and he’s got several little tidbits about Vista that you guys might be interested in hearing about. Here’s the basic summary:

  • Type “PERFORM /report” to get a diagnostic report within Vista
  • When you first turn on Vista, leave it alone for a little bit – Search is working to index your system
  • 64 bit version of Vista can only accept signed drivers
  • Microsoft is pre-ordained to move to 64 bits
  • Go to the command prompt and type “ROBOCOPY” – this performs bulk replications between machines

That’s it for now for the interview..

And speaking of Microsoft Office 2007, don’t forget that PC Magazine had posted a review of the suite back in early October here. I’ve been using Office 2007 since the technical refresh and it’s been really solid. So far – there’s no real reason not to upgrade.

[Check it out]

[Check out the PC Mag interview]

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