So far, the benefits to going Vista boils down to Aero, the new UI with the pretty eye candy. If there's anything that stops Aero from working, I'm liable to make frownie fase and tell everyone I know to stay away from it. So...
Do not install QuickTime if you like Aero.
I installed QuickTime (7.1.3) because some webpage wanted it and suddenly Trilian (3.1) became the reason that Windows Vista alerted me that Windows Vista Basic was now the profile I was going to use, until I quit Trillian. If apps I use start not working, the OS becomes a non-starter.
Searching the web gives you some horsemung explanation of how QT and GDI and Trilian's av.dll and blah blah, but it boils down to having Areo diabled. That means no transparent borders on windows, no window sizing effects, no "Windows Flip 3D," and no toolbar minimized menu previews.
I ended up uninstalling QT, rebooting, reinstalling QT, making sure Trillian had no camera and no camera source. QT in web pages seem to work. When it's a random combo of things that work, that's called "fragile." The alternative, of course, is to not watch the Black Snake Moan trailer until Apple releases a QT that works with Vista.
Thing #2 is the native unzipper. I downloaded and proceeded to unzip Eclipse, the Java-based IDE (size: 120Mb), and Vista thought about it, then told me it'd take 5 hours and 36 minutes to extract. Seriously? Yes, 5+ hours. That's unacceptable, Vista. Fix that.
Third party unzip programs work great and as expected. I prefer 7-zip. But that's not the point. Out of the box, don't expect a coffee break when unzipping something (unless it's under 120Kb, aka 11 minutes), just go to bed. That's what I did.
