- Better overall visual experience. Sure, Aero can be slow for older computers, but proper hardware provides a better experience...
On computers with video cards, Aero is actually faster due to using the GPU instead of the CPU 
.
It's a myth that you need a "high end" system to use Aero. Quite the contrary, I had a three year old card that ran Aero nicely. Aero capable cards can be found for $20 or less.
For $20 I can turn any computer that runs Vista into a computer that runs Vista with Aero without any performance hit.
A lot of the OS was rewritten from the ground up.
This is the part that most people don't realize: A lot has changed underneath the new graphics. Several portions have been rewritten, and the architecture is more modular than XP's architecture. The new code does mean there were a lot of bugs to work out, yes, but in the long run it should provide great benefits that will benefit future versions of the OS.
Windows 7 is based entirely on Vista.
Yup. If Windows 7 is a success, it means that Vista is a success. Microsoft is in no way reverting any code back to XP. They are continuing to modify the code that is in Vista. Yes, they may modify UAC to be less intrusive and more flexible - but UAC will still there. Yes, it will have better driver support - but that's because they are staying with Vista's driver model and not changing it again. Yes it will be faster - but that's because they're optimizing the code that already exists in Vista and not rewriting as much.
Legacy support. I don't want more of it, I want none of it. Get rid of the registry, start over, and create a whole new OS.
Well, looking at how much people are complaining about incompatibilities (real or perceived), I'd say the chance of that happening is zero. After everything that happened in Vista, I only see them being more conservative with code changes.
I agree - I would certainly love to get rid of the Registry. That was one of the biggest messes Microsoft created.
It was supposed to be easier than .ini files - but in all honesty navigating the registry tree finding a group of values you want is far worse than navigating the file system trying to find the .ini file you want. All of the benefits of the registry were lost pretty quickly in the vast tree of HKEYs, Classes, and the eternally frustrating CLSIDs.
Seriously, I spend a lot of time paging through hundreds of classes and thousands of CLSIDs. Is this really a lot better than INI files?
Is looking for "HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\CLSID\{60254CA5-953B-11CF-8C96-00AA00B8708C}" really easier than looking for something like "C:\Windows\Scripts"?
Really?
Somebody, please explain that to me.
Sorry to go off on a tangent, but IMHO the registry is near the top of the list of long term mistakes Microsoft has made. I'm amazed that they still have not come up with an alternative.
We had 10 different versions, computers with "Vista support" that couldn't run it at all
You can thank Microsoft for bowing down to pressure from Intel for that. Intel wanted to slap a "Vista Capable" sticker onto a computer that wasn't up to Microsoft's standards for getting a "Vista Capable" sticker, and Microsoft let them. The result was a diasaster and probably half of the reason why Vista has the poor reputation it has.
Add on top of that the fact that the "Vista Capable" sticker only meant that Vista could run - not that it could run very well.
Not to mention they also had a "Vista Ready" sticker. Problem is, "capable" and "ready," as English words, can be confusing: Both words refer to a minimum state at which something is expected to perform. Neither one of them is comparative, making it difficult to be very clear what the differences in functionality should be between a "ready" system and a "capable" system.
Thankfully, it appears that Microsoft is only going to have one sticker for Windows 7 systems. No more confusion: Either it has the sticker or it doesn't. Hopefully they will not bow down to pressure and put it on systems that shouldn't get it this time.
Keep in mind this is all in 64-bit Vista, which is supposed to have poor software support (another misguided claim).
Very misguided. Microsoft requires 64 bit support to use their "Works with Windows Vista" sticker. Anything with that sticker will work on a 64 bit system.
In addition, I'm using a 64 bit system myself, and the amount of driver support since Vista's release is so vastly improved that I dare say it is now nearly up to 32 bit XP's level of support, save for some very old devices.
On top of all that, I have never had a virus or malware on Vista. I don't even run anti-virus. Every once in a while I do a virus scan to make sure, and I get 0 results on a full system scan.
My antivirus scans once a week while I'm asleep. No big deal. I do recommend a weekly (or daily) scan just to make sure nothing got in.
. . . and even though it might slow things down a bit, a real time scanner will detect things before they get a chance to run - the big thing you really want to avoid is running a virus. DEP also helps prevent malicious code from running without permission.
