Using the "Windows Experience Index," which is included with Vista and designed to give computer users a sense of how well their hardware runs the new operating system's "Aero" GUI, my Vaio scored a 3.6 (out of a possible score of 5). The lowest measure was for gaming graphics. Good thing I'm not a gamer.

My MacBook Pro features a 2.16-GHz dual-core Core Duo processor, a 7,200-rpm hard drive, 2GB of RAM and 256MB of dedicated video RAM. Using the Windows Experience Index, I found that the MacBook Pro got a score of 4.7, no doubt aided by the dual-core chip and better ATI video card. (Gaming graphics, for example, were rated at 4.7 on the MacBook Pro.)

In short, if you have a MacBook Pro, you're ready for Vista. Whether you actually want to install it will be up to you.

Getting Vista RC1 up and running was relatively painless. After installing Boot Camp and creating a 20GB partition on my MacBook Pro's hard drive, I slipped in the Vista installation disk and pretty much let it install as I had on my Vaio. After that was done, I ejected the Vista disk and inserted the disk containing Mac drivers. Here's where I ran into some problems: The drivers failed to install. I'm not surprised, given that Apple provides drivers only for Windows XP Service Pack 2, but I figured I'd try anyway.

What this means is that Apple's traditional replacement for Windows' right-click (Crtl-click) doesn't work. I had to install a separate program -- Apple Mouse -- to successfully add that function. Adding Apple Mouse to the start-up folder means the small application starts up every time Vista does, so I have right-click functionality when I need it.