This is the, er, 'uncut' review of Windows Vista from Mark Pickavance. It's a special treat for our final issue. Get a comfy chair...

I need to be careful about what I say about Microsoft Vista. I've already upset the editor of Micro Mart's sister magazine CTO by writing a feature suggesting that it might be a commercial misplay for the once mighty Microsoft.

What isn't up for debate is that Windows Vista, previously codenamed Longhorn, has arried more than five years after Windows XP, making for the longest period between versions in the history of Windows.

Clearly, things went wrong in the development of this OS, as it crashed through successively expected launch dates like a car in a 70s cop show. Along the way, quite a few of the technological pillars that Microsoft had previously announced got axed, for being beyond the capabilities of the Longhorn team to deliver in any feasible timeframe.

So what's left? Possibly the best aspect of Vista is that where XP has many features bolted on, most of the new ones are actually designed to be part of the greater structure from the outset.

The interface changes are largely cosmetic, though Aero does at least easily differentiate Vista from XP, even if you can make the two look identical.

The really significant differences are all at the level where the security operates, because rather than patching XP's Boeing 747 sized holes, Microsoft built a whole new multi-layer security model from the floor up...

This is also the first version of Windows that comes with an inherent antivirus tool, Windows Defender, although those sadistic enough to want to use Norton or McAfee can use those instead.

But security is about more than antivirus tools, and soon enough a new user will run smack into some of the many changes Microsoft made for security reasons that are less than welcoming. User Account Control (UAC) is the darkside brother of Clippy, that annoying animated paperclip that would interfere with stressed Microsoft Office users.

UAC's forte is to just bug you all the time, asking you if you really wanted to run that application, having seen you move the pointer over it and then double-click! The first time it did this, I laughed; by the 127th, I was looking to permanently disable it whatever registry modifications it took!

While I'm sure this agree-to-everything method worked in the testing labs, it won't work so well when people in sheer frustration have turned it off.

That feature was at least looking to protect users though. Some other security features seemed entirely designed to protect Microsoft's chums in the entertainment industry. For example, an overly complicated and likely-to-fail HDCP protected pathway for video, where the system can downgrade the quality if any part isn't encrypted.

This was designed by the sort of engineers that believe that copy protection systems actually work and provide a valuable service, contrary to all the research that's been performed in this area that wasn't paid for by Hollywood. However, these are probably the least of Vista's sins, in what is a rather disturbingly long list of failure.

The greatest folly is that Microsoft has, since the inception of Windows, convinced itself that it alone can keep the wheels of the PC industry turning, and that it will achieve this by releasing increasingly demanding operating systems that run poorly on previous-generation hardware.

It isn't difficult to imagine that an early version of Aero required much fewer resources, but it was decided to push the boat out a little to stimulate PC sales.

This is so wrong, because when it comes down to it, none of the new features of Vista actually need a more powerful computer that runs XP happily. Having seen some of the systems that are being passed as "Vista Capable" or even "Vista Premium Ready" through sticker endorsements, I can categorically state that many of them offer a remarkably poor user experience due to the increased demands that Vista needs to operate.

A laptop I had delivered from Toshiba was a prime example. It had the sticker, though amazingly half the minimum 512MB RAM, and it ran like it used valves.

For the record, if that machine trashed its hard drive, I couldn't reinstall Vista, because there isn't enough memory installed to allow for that.

To make that system marginally usable, I was forced to turn off all the visual enhancements and reduce background features to an absolute minimum. I'm very confident that the same hardware would run XP admirably and a Linux distro possibly even better.

This all smacks of top execs at Microsoft Redmond HQ testing Vista on the best computers money can buy, oblivious to the reality of what most customers will encounter when they're confronted with it.

To summarise: Vista took too long to get here, isn't what people actually want and is more likely to encourage users to stick with XP for longer.

This is a mistake that Microsoft will only make once, surely? Because, for all XP's faults, it will never be reviled like Vista.