Seriously, I hope someone can put it to good use when you are done running it through the ringer. Giving it away is a good idea, but I am not sure I would be able to part with it if I were in your shoes.

If I was sent just Vista, it would go on the list of “things to do”
If I recieved a new toy (”laptop”), I’d play immediately.

I don’t see the big deal or why there is such a big brouhaha. Yeah, probably should have asked for disclosure up front in any blog posts, but any respectible blogger shsould do that.

The only reason why they’d give away free pre-installed laptops instead of copies of the operating system is because the system requirements are so high, the install process was too painful, or specifically because they were trying to convert Mac users who would never install it themselves.

As you point out, unless you’ve got a ton of RAM and a blazingly fast video card, you wont see the fancy new GUI features….it will still run, but it will ‘degrade’ the eye candy so that it runs at a decent speed.

Basically, I think for the short-term, it will be a step backwards. They claim to have re-written a lot of code to take advantage of newer dual-core processors. As a former software engineer, I take that to mean adding thread capabilities to a lot of the core code….this type of software can be very tricky to write and it’s often difficult to predict all of the places where it can screw up….so short version – I think it will crash a lot or at least a lot of processes will run amok when they shouldn’t be.

I’m curious as to your impressions of working with it.

A bit more on topic, I’m curious also to get your views on how this sort of thing (free samples to bloggers) compares to your views on the whole pay-per-post model?

“but I do hope they’ve learnt a thing or two about how they do it in future“.

I still think Edelman (and MS) consider this a major marketing hit. They have managed to create a buzz/fuzz and dominated the end of year blog news.
In a world of Mac lovers.
The scandal did not hurt them at all. More even they reminded everyone, people who might just have gotten some money from the holidays, that Vista was on its way. And it probably was the cheapest campaign ever.

Btw: Do you have some files or Videos on your Ferrari Laptop from someone called Loki? (which may be part of the Vanishing Point Game)

Still, any publicity is good publicity right? ;)

Matt