I will not say that the Ultimate Extras were the deciding factor for me when I chose the Ultimate version for my laptop as well as the desktop, but the promise of “all” those extras were there. As is already quite obvious there haven’t been to many extras yet; Texas Hold Em Poker and some tools for the Bitlocker application. Dreamscene was just a beta (sorry; Preview) that was dropped early on and then nothing untill yesterday when it finally was released in full.

I, as well as many others, immediately downloaded the update and the extended content pack. The latter holding a whopping total of 3 additional scenes ! (1) Another riverfall – quite nice to look at, (2) A glowing Vista orb and (3) some machinelike looking futuristic whatever….

Is that all(!) Of course in the WindowsVistablog it was pointed out that with the DeskScapes add-on from Stardock you could also play back .dreams clips, a wealth of which you could find on the Stardock WinCustomize site….

True. The Dreamscenes are appealing to the eye – but for how long? For now I have it turned on, and it remains to be seen for how long that will continue. As for the comments on how much the CPU is taxed with DreamScenes on; on my system the load when “only” having Dreamscenes going (plus all the resident programs in the taskbar as well as the sidebar with numerous gadgets) the CPU is taxed between 30-50%…

I have been waiting for something like an Ultimate Extra add-on, something useful and handy, and that is all for now? Come on Microsoft – You need to do better that that. This was disappointing.

In one of my previous posts I promised some words on setting up a home network with Vista. At home I have ADSL (12000/650) provided by Norways biggest broadband/telephone/cellular provider Telenor. We have a total of 4 computers in the household, all of them running on different versions of Vista; (1) The family desktop computer situated in my upstairs den – A Fujitsu Siemens Scaleo 600 running Windows Vista Ultimate, (2) My laptop – A HP Pavilion dv9074ea desktop replacement system that has taken over the role of my main computer also running Windows Vista Ultimate, (3) my sons desktop, a home built system with the AMD Athlon 2600 CPU  running Windows Vista Home Premium and finally an (4) aging Toshiba Satellite S121 laptop that barely runs Windows Vista Basic. On top of that we have a couple of rooms to let, presently occupied by a student running Windows XP Home.

Since the household computers are spread out over the three floors of the house, wiring were out of the question. Telenor provides the DSL modem, a Thompson SpeedTouch 564T2, and my wireless router is a D-link 624 54g.

Setting up a wireless network in Vista is simplicity itself. After getting connected to my provider having set up the modem and wireless router, setting the D-624 to filter by MAC adress as well as WPA encryption the routine is as follows;

1. Connect to your network by right-clikcing the network icon and then choosing that spesific option in the taskbar.

2. Choose your wireless network from the list

3. Enter the WPA encryption key

4. You are connected.

5. Repeat the above steps for the other computers as well

To see all your networked computers go into the Network and Sharing Center and choose to map your network (View Full Map);

It cannot be simpler than that! A huge improvement over the way I had to set everything up in Windows XP SP2 not even mentioning how it was done pre- SP2.

So the time has finally come. Windows Vista was RTM’ed today. A more than 5 year long jorney has finally “ended”. I am looking forward to seeing and getting the final product, but as a regular consumer I will have to wait untill the end of January for that.

For more info see the Jim Allchins announcement on the Windows Vista Team Blog, and Paul Thurrotts post in Wininfo.