Vista's Aero visual environment includes the flip 3-D feature, which allows a user to cycle through a stack of open windows to find the desired application, shown above, and translucent window borders. Vista also offers "Gadgets," small programs that recall Mac "Widgets" (far right of screen above).

For most of the last two decades, I have been a Microsoft apologist. I mean, not merely a contented user of the company's operating systems and software, not just a fan, but a champion. I have insisted that MS-DOS wasn't hard to use (once you got used to it), that Windows 3.1 was the greatest innovation in desktop operating systems, that Word was in fact superior to WordPerfect, and that Windows XP was, quite simply, "it."

Select from the choices above to read the entire article.