PC users have had more than 5 years to debate over what cool features and benefits the next release of Microsoft Windows will have since XP was launched and it seems that Vista is going to be a huge disappointment on many levels. In the 5-year window period since XP (the longest ever between Windows releases), not only have their been countless problems and delays, but ‘the competition’ – made up of Apple and the various Linux distributions – have continued to innovate and redefine the desktop OS.

When we installed Vista Beta Candidate 2 on a desktop machine in the office a couple of months ago, I had pretty high expectations and was expecting to see something extraordinary based on the amount of hype and development that is said to have gone into it. Instead I was left with the impression that it was slow (on a new P4 with 1G+ of ram), incompatible with a lot of Windows applications and devices (granted it was still in Beta), and generally full of ‘bells and whistles’ which didn’t equate to a more productive or innovative working environment. In my opinion most of the ‘new’ features on Vista have been cloned from OSX and re-branded with Microsoft-sounding names. Hardly innovative.

The straw for me, however, is the new DRM that is embedded in the operating system from a software and hardware level, effectively handing complete control to Microsoft and their partners in the Entertainment Industry. Not only will this be a major cause of frustration and inconvenience when you want to listen to ‘legal’ music off another device for example, but it will also mean that you’ll probably have to buy a whole new rig just to watch movies off next generation media discs, such is the extent of the DRM built into that technology. Oh — and don’t even think about watching content off legitimate backups either. When software vendors start to take control of my expensive hardware, that’s when they can go get screwed!

Computerworld have written a very good overview of the DRM issue in Vista and added additional insight into who stands to benefit from it. I’ll let you be the judge.

All I know is that it’s clearly time to make the switch to an Apple Mac Book Pro, which is not only the coolest looking laptop on earth with countless great features, but thanks to the Intel Core 2 Duo chipset it now runs on, can also handle Windows XP if the need arises. I predict that when the next release of Mac OS X v10.5 comes out early next year, it will be an even bigger improvement on Vista and the catch-up-game will continue to widen.