Back in the Vista Beta

Long ago, on a previous version of the blog whose data is long gone, I blogged about being on the Beta for Windows Codename Longhorn and (later) Windows Vista. When it went RTM, I received a free copy of Windows Vista Ultimate Edition RTM Build 2600 as a thank-you for the dozens of bugs I filed — Despite the fact that every one was closed as “Working as intended”, “Could not duplicate”, etc.

I just received my confirmation as having been approved to participate in the Beta for Windows Vista SP1; so I guess we’ll all get to see how that turns out. My understanding is that the NDA prevents me from proclaiming the bugs I find across the Internet; but if you happen to witness one or two via the Live Video Feeds, so be it.

I’m sure SP1 contains nothing more exciting than a slew of security updates, “Critical” updates which patch a hole that could “potentially allow a hacker to gain access to your system”, and the ilk.

However, since my new Motherboard is on the way, I’ll probably be able to support Aero Glass across the entire desktop. That is to say, I’ll be installing two additional X1650-series (or similar) ATI Radeons so they all run on the same driver. Microsoft calls this a Heterogeneous Multi-Adapter Display Configuration. Aero Glass will look awesome stretched across six monitors and three adapters; I look forward to seeing it.

I just hope they’ve resolved the issue whereas my mouse cursor was really choppy in the Explorer interface. maybe it was the Radeon 7500 I was using at the time as the 3rd card; I dunno. We’ll see.