Windows Vista Beta 2 on Dell Inspiron 9300

Last night, I installed Windows Vista Beta 2 on my Dell 9300. Everything went swimmingly. So, sign up for the Beta Experience at Microsoft.

I will update this post later on my experiences.
All I know is, the UAC/UAP is horrible… see this tweak guide at Chris123NT’s blog on how to remove the User Account Protection (when Vista asks you if you really, really, really want to delete that Shortcut!…)

After burning the huge ISO file, and jotting down the key given by Microsoft, I popped the disc in and booted directly from it. I should also note that I switched a new hard drive in there, an 80g Hitachi 2.5″, partitioned 60/20 (well close to that anyway). By the way Dell, I almost crushed the stock drive because the screws holding it in were in so tight I almost had to use the jaws of life.

It went well. The thing is, the installation took way too bloody long. It was 2am, and at 3am the machine had just finished copying/decompressing the files. Nevertheless, no hiccups. The only thing was, there were no drivers for sound (I think I have a Sigmatel something), but after updating Windows, and letting it do it’s thing, I heard the glorious ‘bing’ of the volume control.

Playing around with it, I don’t really understand the new UI. It’s confusing. I am sure technophobes will say ‘Oh my god, wheres My Computer gone?‘ and
‘What on earth, where’s Solitaire gone?‘…

Adding my wireless connection was even more confusing. And there are a ton of these ‘Are you sure you want to do this?‘ type dialogs, part of the overloaded ‘UAP’ feature Microsoft has implemented. Dumb. But you can turn it off, goto this link to find out how.

Glass is nice. But who cares. Honestly. I can see myself switching to classic mode as soon as I get home.

Let’s see how stable it is from now on…