Oh, and ... SP2 for Windows Vista and Server 2008 are on MSDN, TechNet too

I'm impressed with SP2, my machines are much snappier and smoother.

Yeah, this download is strange. Its one large ISO for all of the things Paul mentioned. However, the contents of the ISO are as follows: autorun.inf setup.exe Windows6.0-KB948465-IA64.exe Windows6.0-KB948465-X64.exe Windows6.0-KB948465-X86.exe So, its an ISO that contains just the standalone installers? Why not just post the standalone EXEs to MSDN/Technet? Strange forcing someone to download such a large ISO when they may only need the x86 and/or the x64 EXEs.

SP2 Vista is supposed to be the base code for 7, under the hood, driver model, they way it handles older software etc. Its missing features that 7 has, but not all the new wireless wizard is in it.

Windows 7 RC isn't running as well as Vista SP2 on my laptop unfortunately. Driver related. To be honest SP2 has stolen some of 7s thunder on me.

@Lindy: DX11 will run on DX9/10/10.1 hardware but that doesn't mean you get advanced functionality. What it means is that developers don't have to reprogram a completely different rendering pipeline just because they want to support older hardware. DX11 is not included in Vista SP2. Neither is WDDM 1.1. Why do you think graphics card makers have separate drivers specifically for Windows 7 when they could've used the WHQL-certified Windows Vista ones?

Mac Pro likes Win7 too: Windows 7 Ultimate on Nehalem Mac Pro: Apple's most powerful Mac rides high on the Windows Experience Index http://www.infoworld.com/d/windows/windows-7-ultimate-nehalem-mac-pro-018

I won't even bother with Service Pack 2 and will just move my notebook directly to Windows 7 RC candidate. At this point, Vista has been rendered moot after the very stellar Windows 7 beta. Since 7057 is so much better than the beta was, everything I've read says and indicates that 7100 is pretty much ready for prime time. I also want to see how Windows 7 handles on a single core 64 bit mobile processor. Since I have a backup Vista image on my desktop's second desktop, I can always take from there if I absolutely need Vista. Or I can just buy a second notebook drive and keep Vista on the original as a backup. I'm pretty much ready to kiss Vista goodbye. I'm getting so much more bang for the buck with Windows 7 than holding on to Vista. Either way, I think people should be moving on from Vista as soon as possible.

I may just buy the wife a Win 7 laptop when they arrive, The kids may get confused, but I can test them on the new laptop, then try upgrading the older hardware to 7. Remember this, I'm the guy that usually never upgrades, Mac or Windows!

I wrote up an article about Windows Vista/Server 2008 SP2 here: http://www.winsupersite.com/vista/sp2_rc.asp

So far the RC is pretty nice. I installed in on a white box Intel mobo/intel CPU and it runs good. I have 4gigs of RAM though. Playing around the video settings (with nothing but Windows installed) Classic sits at 688meg used. If I turn on Aero and pick the ocean theme 790meg used. Quite a hit for Aero, but its good to know that I save about 100megs of RAM with classic as it will help out moving to 7 on VDI at work.