In that review of a year ago, I had one major qualm about Vista. While Microsoft had gone to great effort to the make 64-bit x64 variants of Vista the functional peers of the more mainstream 32-bit versions, I discovered that life in 64-bit lane circa late 2006 wasn't so hospitable. Yes, the hardware and software compatibility of Vista x64 was much better than I had anticipated, and certainly much better than that of Windows XP x64 Professional Edition. But there were niggling issues. A fairly unscientific run-through of the applications, games, and hardware I used regularly found a number of incompatible stumbling blocks.

The problem with this sort of thing is that it only takes a single important incompatibility to ruin an OS. If you can't get your most-often-needed application or game to work, why even bother upgrading? And if it can't configure half your hardware devices, how could you even use such a system? Vista x64, I opined, just wasn't ready for prime time, despite the many advances Microsoft had made.

Well, now it’s a year later. What's changed?