Say, for example, you place a Downloads and a Screenshots folder off your root directory under XP. This simplifies sharing, because it's not buried in those tricky-to-permit-access-to folders in the user data and other areas on an XP drive. After you install Vista to a second partition, you may find that -- from Vista -- you're prompted to open those folders, even though they're not even on the Vista partition.

This is also extremely complex, because in some settings, you won't be prompted -- and you may be hard-pressed to figure out why you get a prompt in some folders, or even some files in some folders, while others do not lead to any prompt at all.

Microsoft is aware of this problem and has been working on fixes. But in a telephone interview in July, a UAC manager and developer said that improvements in the file permissions area would be continuing beyond RC1. Hopefully, Microsoft will get this right in the end.

Pluses and minuses

Based on a 48-hour snapshot, Windows Vista RC1 is the first version of the next edition of Windows that shows Microsoft's to-do list dwindling rapidly. There are new pluses, and far fewer minuses. The fact that Microsoft is offering Vista RC1 to more than 5 million beta testers (Beta 2 was offered to a mere 2.35 million testers), is very encouraging. The software giant is trying to get as much data as it can about problems and issues while it still has a month or so to fix them. It's hard to quibble with that approach. It should make Windows Vista much better.