Pulled the plug on Vista  

I finally did it. Late last week I decided it was time to dump Vista and go back to XP. Don't get me wrong, I didn't want to. I use a Toshiba M400 Tablet PC and Vista Ultimate was really sweet on that box. The tablet functionality was great and Office 2007 really works well with Vista. The problem was that I need a machine that could connect over my VPN to my corporate office. All of the blame here lies with Watchguard. We use their firewall products throughout our organization and have been very happy with them until December of last year. That was when I decided to go to Vista on my tablet. Keep in mind I have been running Vista since February of last year after the the February CTP release came out (thanks Technet) on my main office desktop with no major issues. I thought that with the betas and release candidates having been out for well over a year that most corporate catering type of software companies would have had plenty of time to get their act together. Watchguard has failed miserably at this and is pointing the finger at a third party, SafeNet, who supplies the VPN security solution for their systems. Either way, it is Watchguard's responsibility to get their software working for their customers. They have dropped the ball big time in my opinion and others have voiced the same concerns. Their support forum is full of disgruntled customers who are voicing the same issues in a not so nice way. It really sucks because Watchguard has us by the short hairs on this one, I can purchase all new gear and move to a new vendor (yeah right) or deal with it until, get this, the end of the year! Thats when they expect to have a working VPN client for Vista.

Fortunately, I'm the only one within the company with a desire to run Vista but that will change. As we add people, particularly district managers and such that are completely mobile and order new laptops for them, it will be harder and harder to get XP on them. Luckily, Dell has changed their tune in the last few months to start offering XP again on their systems due to the outcry from their existing customers.

Overall, I've had a great experience with Vista and a poor experience with the one piece of software I couldn't live without. Anyway, it's always nice to have a clean install on a machine, out with the new and in with the old!