Initially, I had planned to wait for a few months until all of my apps and peripherals had full Vista support. However, a recent sound card upgrade gone bad and other sporadic problems had me facing a full XP reinstall anyway, so I decided to order Vista today and expect to reinstall tomorrow. I am upgrading from XP Pro to Home Premium on my home computer, therefore must do a clean install (which is fine with me, since I was going to do it with XP anyway).
My system is a homemade AMD Athlon 64 3200+, 2 GB of RAM, ATI Radeon AIW X800 graphics, Creative Soundblaster XFi Platinum, integrated nForce3 ethernet and a number of USB Peripherals - Logitech Harmony Remote, HP Scanjet Scanner, ATI Remote Wonder, a Logitech webcam, and a 5-in-1 card reader/USB hub.
The software which I primarily use is Windows Live Messenger, Firefox, Wordperfect Mail, Wordperfect X3 suite, Winamp, MS Office Pro 2003, ATI Multimedia Centre, Panda Antivirus and Firewall suite and the APC Powerchute software due to numerous power outages in my area.
Today I went to download Vista versions of drivers and software and here's what I've found: It appears that HP will not be releasing scanner drivers until late February or March, however I hardly use it and won't miss it. The Logitech Harmony Remote also does not have a Vista version but I do have a laptop that I will keep XP on so I can update it off of that for now. The ATI Multimedia Centre (which I use to watch DVDs, downloaded video and cable TV) is not supported under Vista although ATI will be releasing a new product called Catalyst Media Center shortly - this is what I will miss the most.
In terms of software, Panda has not released a Vista version of my antivirus suite but has temporarily provided a Vista version of their Antivirus only product which will work for now. I don't see an Vista version of the APC software but it says it will be supported soon. I have downloaded final versions of the drivers for my video card and webcam. Beta versions of Vista drivers are available for my sound card and ethernet controller. The Wordperfect suite is supposed to work fine, with a Vista-optimized patch on the way. I imagine Office will work fine as well although I have also ordered Office 2007 home edition to upgrade the primary applications.
So apart from being able to watch TV and DVDs on my system for now, I don't anticipate any loss in functionality. I hope that the upgrade will get rid of the gremlins, make the soundcard work properly (I have tried it in another computer where it worked fine) and hopefully make everything more efficient. I will post my upgrade experience.
Separately, I am responsible for 30-some computers at work which I have recently replaced with new units and am eligible for Office and Vista upgrades. My current plan is to upgrade them to Office 2007 within a few months as I've heard quite a few good things about it but wait for about a year for Vista Business as we use quite a bit of specialized software that is currently not Vista compatible but that will be upgraded or replaced over the next year. Although I am responsible for supporting our computers and network, it is not my primary role and this is the first time I'll be doing something on this scale. Any ideas about what the best way to approach this upgrade is in terms of making the upgrade seamless for the 50 or so employees which use Office?