Windows Vista

Well the new version of Windows is out the door. My conclusion is... I'll probably get it when I get a new machine. I was tempted by it, there are a couple of reasons I'd want it. They are:

• Media Centre
• 64-bit Goodness

However I was reading an article about its protected media handling which put me off a little. Still not enough to deter me from be interested still. Even the system performance hit based on the new chrome in the system didn't put me off (though I have seen much of it done as well, if not better, on my 800MHz, 384MB of RAM iBook).

However I read that the upgrade requires an old OS to install over. A pain if you need to do a reinstall, especially since a base install of XP can be owned before you have time to download the patches, but you could just unplug from the network to avoid that. However the killer point is:

Those hoping to upgrade should be aware of a few issues, too. 32-bit versions of XP can only be upgraded to 32-bit versions of Windows Vista. And Windows XP Professional x64 Edition can only be upgraded to 64-bit versions of Windows Vista (Business and above).

Paul Thurrott's Windows Site

So I can't do an upgrade to x64 Vista with Windows XP64 Professional installed on my machine (which I don't have). I considered buying an OEM copy but OEM software is also tied to the motherboard it is first installed on and since I've considered changing to an PCI-E architecture (I got one of the last AGP motherboards) then I don't want to bind myself to that either.

Oh well, hope too many DirectX 10 games come out any time soon.