I'm back in the Windows world, at least temporarily. A friend at work sent me the link to a temporary Windows Vista beta download offer, and I abandoned my Linux for Microsoft's latest. I downloaded and burned the image to DVD and erased the last two months of alternative operating systems by installing it last night.

The first thing that I can tell you is that there is a definite time limit - it won't let me activate the installation, which means it will stop in 14 days, and even if I reformat and reload, it will still cease functioning in May, anyway. So, this will not be staying on my system forever - but it should give me a good look at the future of Windows so that I can see if I want to stay in the fold.

The major factor in me moving to Linux was cost - and with Vista going for what it is, that looks like a big reason to stay on Linux. However, new computers will probably come with Vista pre-loaded, so that will be one way I will be able to attain a copy. The question is, will I want to?

Here's my first impression - it's slick. It looks nice, although a lot about it reminded me of Linux both visually and in terms of program structure. Someone in Redmond's been sneaking a look at the competition...

One thing that kinda ticks me off is that it's trying to make me reactivate the copy of MS Works & Word XP that I have, but won't let me do it because I already have them activated on another machine. The machine I had them activated on was, in fact, this one, several reformats ago. So, now I have another time limit - I can only open Word another 46 times before it stops working.

It can't see my printer, and there are no drivers for my printer in Vista - it's too old. Thanks, Bill. Nobody keeps printers longer than they keep their computers, no. So, if I want to print from Vista, I'll need to find a different printer.

I can't use my Windows Live OneCare software that I still have about 45 free days on because I neglected to save the installation file for it. :( Oh, well. Windows Defender is loaded automatically as part of the operating system, anyway. We'll see how many viruses I catch by the time I have to switch away from this.

So far - not terribly impressed by it. The Windows Live Writer I'm using to make this blog entry, though - very nice.

More to come later on My Windows Experiment! See the other side of the experiment at My Linux Experiment.