Stuff that doesn't suck:
Parental Controls. They're exactly what you'd like them to be. Not only can you specify times when a user is allowed on the machine, but you can specify generic web-type settings, or get medieval and completely specify allowed/disallowed sites as you'd like.

More importantly, you can specify which native WINDOWS components the user can interact with (like the control panel, etc.), and you can grant/revoke access to certain programs. Honestly, it's perfect.

Performance Diagnostics. Finally, I've got an easy, logical way to see disk activity. This alone makes me very tempted to switch to Vista TODAY.

And, more importantly than just showing me nice graphs - I can now easily see what's got hooks/etc into various files. Kind of like building in extra goodness of the type that's typically associated with SysInternal's utilities. It's also nice that perfmon and all of its goodness is right there as well.

Reliability Diagnostics. There's also a spiffy new interface that reports on any failures - nice.

'In Place Navigation.' I'm sure MS has their own term for this, but whatever the name, I like. At any point in your current path (as displayed in explorer) you can 'branch' in to a completely new location. VERY sweet.

(For example, in the screen cap above, I can immediately 'branch' or navigate to any root directories off of my J drive. Not the best invention EVAR, but very helpful, and something I'll likely use. (It takes a bit of time to get used to, but can be pretty useful.)

Startups: More goodness in the spirit of SysInternal's utilities (i.e. Autoruns) that will help you keep tabs on evil installers. (No not ad/spyware - but crud like iTunes and other crap that feels it needs to start up 5-12 MB of 'services' each time your box starts.)

Very Cool.

Add Remove Windows Components: By now you've hopefully heard that MS will let you upgrade your Vista 'version' by paying an upgrade fee online - and then just turning on what features you need/come bundled with your 'purchased' version.

What I like about it, however, is that it makes it easy to see what's installed or not - no more clicking that bleepin' details > details > details button - it's all exposed in a simple-to-use treeview control now.

Not Sucky, Not So Hot Either:
Aero Glass: Yawn. Check out all of the screen caps up until this point. Yeah, Aero-Glass is cool - it's pretty spiffy, and YES it's much more than merely making the borders of your windows transparent. Only, it's really just nothing more than making the borders of your windows transparent - with some very impressive hardware rendering. Which is my big beef - the hardware requirements. There just isn't enough 'candy' there to justify the absurd hardware requirements. Hopefully we'll see some other coolness come out the UI, or I'm going to consider it a MAJOR disappointment (as much as I like what's there).

Flip 3D: Mega Yawn. I'd seen images of windows in 3D from various reviews of Vista - and somehow figured that we could 'stash' or 'minimize' them off to the side in a semi-3D mode - kind of like what you CAN do with WPF (Avalon). But no. After seriously hunting around and pecking at various ways to even get Flip 3D to work, I seriously underwhelmed when I got it to work. What's it do? Simple: Instead of hitting ALT+TAB to cycle through your windows, Flip 3D lets you WIN+TAB through your windows, but shows them as thumbnails 'stacked' in a so-called 3D manner.

Big YAWN. I mean, cool, I guess. But I hope this isn't one of the things that's been holding Vista up. (And from the TINY bit I've seen, I'm thinking I could get VERY similar 'candy' from a *gasp* Mac - but much LESS hardware. Seriously... I don't GET the 256 MB graphics card requirement - for what, some killer shading? hrrmmmmpppph.)

The Ugly / Sucky:
User Access Control. This stuff just plain sucks. It really feels like a great big hack, and I'm surprised more people in the security community aren't crying foul. (Maybe the fact that they're not means I don't know what I'm talking about - but I can guarantee you that you'll hate this 'functionality' too).

So, you're playing around with Vista - checking out new functionality - all of a sudden the entire screen dims, and a pop up demands your attention. Something currently in operation has crossed a trust boundary - would you like it to continue?

Not only do I think this is dumb (most people using the machine won't know what's going on - they're trying to 'get' to a part of their computer, see something, or install software that they would like to have work - so they're GOING to just click YES. Security problem with spyware/malware and luring NOT solved.

And this thing is SERIOUSLY annoying. While looking at the Task Manager's processes tab, I clicked the 'show processes from all users' option - the screen dimmed, everything stopped. Did I want to proceed? Um Sure.

My favorite part was when Vista booted up - something was trying to run, did I want to let it continue?

Um, yeah. I think I'll let that one fly. (But hey, thanks for the alert on something attempting to run what might POSSIBLY be a malicious program.) Overall, as to the UAC thing, it's analogous to the fact that I'm a terror risk. See, whenever I fly anywhere since 9/11, it turns out that in 1972 there was a male with the last name of Campbell born, who apparently MIGHT have ties to terrorism. Because _I_ am male, was born in 1972, and have the last name of Campbell - I can no longer check in online - I have to do it at the counter, in order to keep everyone on the flight SAFE. (In other words, it's a pathetic use of smoke and mirrors that doesn't do a damned thing.)

Other Factors:
Despite my major contention with the effectiveness, AND the annoyance of the User Access controls, and my lack of fanfare over aero-glass, I was pretty impressed by the overall beta. Installation was NICE - and almost all of my hardware was automatically detected. Performance was excellent - fast enough that I found myself thinking I could switch to using this BETA as a primary platform. And, yeah, the Aero Glass stuff is cool - just nothing huge. In other words, I've heard analysts and (I believe) MS spokespeople talk about how Vista will be the next big revolution in computing - the biggest revolution since Windows 95. Well, from everything I saw, I've got to say that I must be missing something. What I saw was a very NICE upgrade, maybe even a nice bit of evolution - but nothing revolutionary.

All that said, I'm totally willing to give it a chance - and I'm currently thinking really hard of making the switch to Vista as my primary platform - it's snappy, better to look at than XP, and has some cool new gizmos - and I've only scratched the surface. And it's definitely NOT a failure (other than that UAC crap), just not something that I would have had to expect to wait 3+ years for - that's all.