I have finally reinstalled my Vista Ultimate to RTM after running RC1 for some time. The installation went smoothly and took less than half an hour for a clean installation with all the essential drivers without me having to go rummaging through my CD collection to find any drivers. I chose to install the Ultimate rather than Enterprise version since I plan to use Vista for both entertainment and work. The picture below which I've expertly copied from the Windows Vista magazine sums up nicely the targeted audience for the multitude of Vista versions.
It was my first time seeing the Vista boot up logo and sound as there where some bug in the previous version that skipped this bit before the Vista welcome screen, probably due to incompatibility with my fantastic graphics card in Vista RC1. All credits to the Vista team, I'd like to think that the bug report I spent a lot of time and effort (15mins) in compiling contributed to getting this bug fixed for RTM. It wasn't an easy job trying to capture the error during the system boot up sequence.
There's already tons of coverage on the new features in Vista but I'd like to mention the two games that appealed to me, first is Chess Titans and comes as standard with Windows Vista Home Premium and Windows Vista Ultimate edition. It is great to have an alternative to solitaire and plus you actually learn how to move chess pieces. The second game I like is Texas Hold 'Em poker and comes as a free download with Windows Ultimate Extras. The days of making a fool of yourself when you bet big and lose are over, with Vista's Hold 'Em poker you can go all-in with your chips without having to think about remortgaging your house.
Another thing I'm looking forward to is Windows DreamScene, hopefully this will be available for download soon via Windows Vista Ultimate Extras. I can't imagine I will find any thing useful with having full-motion desktop backgrounds but if Vista does somehow allow cable tv to be displayed as desktop background I can imagine people's TV viewing habit will change, especially since IPTV is gaining momentum. I really like the approach Microsoft is taking to enhance the Multimedia experience on the desktop and putting the spotlight on designers rather than just developers and techies.
Demo of Full Motion Desktop