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Last week Microsoft finally released the public beta of Windows Vista. Since then, thousands have flocked to Microsoft's site to download the beta for themselves. Our editors have installed the beta and have been playing with it for the past few days and now they've come back to write this full review of Microsoft Windows Vista Beta 2.

First of all, lets tell you about our test machine. Its got an AMD Athlon 3200+ (2.0GHz) processor, 1GB of RAM, 140GB hard drive, and an ATI Radeon 9550 video card with 256MB of video RAM. This computer far exceeds the guidelines that Microsoft has set as the bare minimum needed to run/install Windows Vista. You can see the full system requirements to run Windows Vista at Microsoft's Vista Web site. Before the installation of Vista, our computer ran Windows XP Home Edition, so we wanted to install Vista on a separate hard drive that we installed and make it so that Windows XP and Windows Vista could dual-boot. Seems easy enough, right?

Well for the most part, yes. Once we had downloaded the massive 3.12GB ISO image file from Microsoft's download Web site, we burned it to a DVD+R and off we went. In order to dual-boot two operating systems, it is usually recommended to start the installation from your existing operating system. So we inserted the DVD and started the installation process. When the installation wizard opened on our first try, we got an error saying that a driver would not allow the Vista installation to start once it was installed. We took note of the driver and it turns out that Alcohol 120%, which is a virtual drive application, installed on Windows XP was preventing Vista from installing. So we uninstalled Alcohol 120% and rebooted and the installation wizard finally started. It gave us a choice of upgrading our Windows XP installation or installing from scratch to another drive, we chose the clean installation so we could dual-boot later on. However, when it started to copy the necessary files, we got a weird Microsoft Visual C++ Runtime Library error that closed our installation. We re-tried a few times, but to no avail. So we decided to install Vista by booting from the DVD. We turned on our computer with the DVD in the drive and it booted right into the Vista setup right off the DVD. Installing this way gave us no problems at all. In total, it took just over 30 minutes for Vista to completely install, which is pretty good compared to the 45min-1hr installation time of previous operating systems.

Once Vista booted, it started to install our various hardware components. All but three devices installed successfully automatically. The three devices were our sound card, our HP Photosmart printer, and our ATI TV tuner card. We were able to insert the driver discs or go to the manufacturer's Web site to download Vista-compatible drivers for both the printer and the sound card. However, the ATI TV tuner is not compatible with Windows Vista at this present time according to ATI's Web site.

When Vista first booted, it displayed what it calls the "Welcome Center." It's basically a portal to common management tasks. There is a link to activate Vista, run a Windows Update, add new users, add a printer, personalize the look of Vista, and more. It can be pretty useful the first few times you boot into Vista, but after that we checked the box that prevented the Welcome Center from appearing on startup.

The new Vista Welcome Center is displayed at startup (until you tell it not to) and it gives you quick link to common computer management tasks

The Interface
The new Windows Aero interface is breathtakingly amazing. At first glance, you instantly fall in love with its transparency and advanced visual features and looks. Vista is filled with new 3D icons and glossy buttons. Some, but not all, computers will be able to experience the new Aero interface, it all depends on how powerful the hardware is inside your computer (especially the video card for the interface's 3D features). Users that don't meet these requirements will see the Windows XP-like interface that doesn't have any of the new 3D elements.

Sidebar and Gadgets
On the right side of the desktop, you'll see the new Windows Sidebar complete with pre-installed "gadgets." You can choose from a CPU/RAM monitor, photo slide show, a RSS reader, and much more. You can also browse and download other gadgets via Microsoft's gadget browser accessible from right-clicking the sidebar.

The Windows Sidebar can display many "gadgets" at the same time.

Start Menu and Search
Remember the cascading programs menu in Windows XP's start menu? Well you can kiss it goodbye in Windows Vista. Its been replaced by a new collapsible start menu that keeps all of the programs neatly organized into one column. At the bottom of the start menu is a new search feature. It's very nice because it searches as you type and narrows down the search results as you continue to type more.

The new start menu in Windows Vista features a collapsible programs menu and a built-in search feature.

Updated File Structure
Guess what? No more backslashes, colons, or directory trees. Windows Vista allows you to move files around on your hard drive even without physically moving the files. For example, you can save a file to a remote drive within the Save As window and there is no need to create a new folder, name it, then populate it with files. The old file structure (ie- C:\Program Files\Nero 7\) is completely gone. Instead, it's replaced with a "breadcrumb" navigation system. For example, that same directory above now looks like this...Computer --> Program Files --> Nero 7. Each "breadcrumb" (ie- Program Files) is clickable and when you do click it, it takes you right to that folder. It's very nice and saves you a lot of time when you're navigating around your computer.

Network Center
The new Network Center is where Vista has all of its Internet and network-related options and features at. There is a new feature called Network Map, which will virtually map out your entire network, showing your all of the computers and gateways installed on that particular network.

Vista's Network Map virtually maps out your network and displays all computers and gateways that are installed on your network

New and Updated Programs
Windows Vista includes lots of updates to existing programs, as well as new programs too. Vista comes with a new version of Internet Explorer (making it 7.0) and it comes complete with new security features and even tabbed browsing! An update to Windows Media Player is also includes (version 11) and it sports a totally revamped interface and layout.

The new Internet Explorer 7 includes new security features as well as tabbed browsing, which is common in alternative Web browsers, such as Mozilla's Firefox.

Games
Who doesn't love games? Well lucky you because Microsoft has includes some new games as well as revamped its existing games. You'll get new versions of Solitaire, Minesweeper, and Hearts as well as a new chess game and a few other ones as well.

Microsoft includes new games, such as chess, as well as updates older games like Solitaire in Windows Vista

One thing that we didn't like about Windows Vista is some of the included security features. However, we do very much like the included Windows Defender and updated Windows Firewall. Unfortunately, when you perform a task that requires admin rights, a very annoying dialog box appears asking for permission for whatever you are trying to do—even if you're logged in as an administrator. This gets very annoying when you are in the middle of doing something and it stops you completely and asks for permission to do something that you just asked it to do. Microsoft needs to work on that a little bit before the final release of Vista.

Vista performs very nicely too. It's very quick to respond and we experienced few, if any, errors or freeze ups under normal use. There are, however, many things yet that Microsoft needs to work out before the final release.

In conclusion, Windows Vista beta 2 is quite impressive. However, as this is a beta release, we strongly recommend against installing Windows Vista over your main installation of Windows XP or on your primary computer. Windows Vista is perfect for a secondary computer or on a dual-boot with XP on a separate hard drive. If you can download the 3GB file and have a spare computer around that meets the system requirements and if you want to get an advanced look at Vista, go ahead and install it, you'll thank yourself (and us) later.