7. Lack of Windows Sidebar Gadgets.

As I write this, there's a grand total of 21 Gadgets available for Vista's Sidebar. There are 280 Gadgets available for Windows Live, but they aren't compatible with Sidebar. Microsoft is considering some sort of unified Gadget model, but that appears to be something down the road. While the overall design of the Sidebar is excellent, and it should be generally easy for programmers and Web developers to writer Sidebar Gadgets, so far not many have been created. With the exception of a stock ticker, a currency conversion tool, RSS feed viewer, an analog clock, a calculator and a notepad, Vista Gadgets are primarily trinkets, games and eye candy. So, right at this moment, the Windows Sidebar is pretty useless. In comparison, Google Gadgets and Plugins for Google Desktop Sidebar number almost 300, and there are nearly 2,000 Dashboard Widgets for Apple's Mac OS X Tiger.

6. Media Center isn't all there and falls flat.

I have no problems with the way Microsoft has implemented Media Center in Windows Vista Beta 2, except for one little detail: On my three-week-old Media Center test machine, the act of launching any kind of live TV in Vista Media Center brings down hard the device driver for the PC's ATI X1400 128MB/256MB video card, which fully supports Aero Glass. The picture displays for a split second and then the screen goes black, which was not exactly the transition I was hoping for. The same PC displays live TV perfectly when launched in Windows XP Media Center 2005 Edition. The drivers for the TV tuner and remote control and other Media Center goodies configured impressively and rapidly under Windows Vista. But if it doesn't display TV, well, what's the point?

Other reviewers have complained about the color scheme and the increased use of horizontal (left and right button) controls, but I actually prefer those minor changes. They result in fewer clicks in some cases, and I always prefer fewer clicks.