Windows Vista Beta 2: The key word is 'Beta'

Gary Krakow Columnist • E-mail

I've just spent the past four days living and breathing Microsoft’s Windows Vista Beta 2.

I would like to tell you how easy it was to install and how much fun I’ve had using Vista Beta 2 over the past few days, but I can’t. That’s because the combination of Beta 2 and the laptop computers I tried to install it on was like trying to mix oil and water.

The version of Vista I was testing was given to me about a week before the official Beta 2 release announced Tuesday in Seattle at WinHEC, Microsoft's conference for Windows hardware engineering.  I’ve been using what was described to me as a "very near Beta 2." (MSNBC is a Microsoft – NBC joint venture.)

Beta, or pre-release, software is notorious for being... let’s say quirky.  I had a feeling going in to this that I might have a few problems to deal with.

The stuff that works on Vista seems to work well. But getting the Beta on to a computer was another matter. Installing Vista Beta 2 was one of the worst operating system experiences that I’ve ever encountered.

It took me days to install a working version on a new Lenovo ThinkPad X60 laptop with 2GB of memory and all sorts of built-in wireless networking. I tried installing it as an update to the laptop’s Windows XP — but after four hours of churning away the laptop shut down and wouldn’t reboot.

I tried again on the ThinkPad as a clean install, which meant wiping out everything on the hard drive and starting from scratch. That took about an hour to complete. It also removed every device driver that I needed to run the laptop.

Downloading the drivers from the Lenovo Web site took a long time, but after a while I had downloaded and installed the package. Unfortunately, not everything I downloaded is Vista-ready so rebooting had to occur after every 10 minutes of computer use.

Also, the built-in audio and wireless connectivity devices don’t work.  I do have an 802.11b/g PC card that was recognized by the system.

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