My original plan was to present some performance data in the third part of this review. There's just one problem: At least half of the games I intended to put through the benchmark paces wouldn't work correctly--or in one notable case, install at all--on Windows Vista RC1. After fretting over this for a bit, and then blowing away all of the games I did manage to install during a VMWare Workstation-induced system restore (which was causing blue screens), I decided to move on. For now.

I'll still try and present that data at a later point. In the meantime, I've got bigger fish to fry. More specifically, there are two issues I'd like to discuss in this part of the review. First, let's take a week-old look back at RC1 and see how it's held up under pressure and the passage of time. Second, I did something scary and thought you might be interested in hearing about it: I upgraded a perfectly serviceable (if dirty) Windows XP installation--complete with months and months of installed applications and data--to see what would happen. The results surprised me. And, interestingly, they have some bearing on that first issue I just mentioned as well. And you thought they were completely unrelated.