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It's like Vista has personality, that she's somehow a wounded lover; she's angry that I left for a while. Vista hasn't thrown open her arms to embrace me.

Over most of the summer, I spent more time using Mac OS X than Windows Vista. That was in part because I took on Apple Watch and because of the iPhone 3G. But it's time to turn back to Vista, particularly with so many Microsoft products coming out or going into beta over the next couple of months. Today was my first full day using Vista; yesterday was switch day.

My morning started off with a big surprise: Windows Live Mail wouldn't send any messages, and I got a cryptic error notice for my troubles. E-mail had been working last night, but not this morning. Now maybe it's coincidence, but I installed Zune 3.0 software before observing the problem. Could the software applications—both from Microsoft—be a little incompatible?

It's this kind of productivity drain that has people switching to the Mac. I don't have hours to spend figuring out the problem. I did some basic troubleshooting, which included rebooting the laptop while I ate breakfast. Live Mail's death meant switching to Outlook, which I had resisted. Outlook saps resources when checking mail (it's not a friendly multitasker), and the point of my return is finding out what is the Microsoft lifestyle. For consumers, Live is the center of that lifestyle. Overall, my experience with Windows Live Mail has been most disappointing. I hope the Wave 3 version is better than this.

When I should have been testing Zune 3.0, I was manually setting up various e-mail accounts, all IMAP, in Outlook. There is an account settings import wizard—for Outlook Express and, get this, Eudora Light. I knew these were the only import options for Outlook; I had never checked for Version 2007 but expected broader import options.. Eudora Light? How about Thunderbird or, better yet, Windows Mail or Windows Live Mail? This Microsoft stuff is supposed to work together, right?

After setting up Outlook, I remembered to open Windows Messenger, which gave a connection error because Internet Explorer was set to offline mode. Right, I hadn't yet launched IE 8, which kept mysteriously switching to offline mode. Oh? Could that be Live Mail's problem, too? D`oh, I should have known better. Live Mail received mail just fine. The problem remained.

I really like Internet Explorer 8 Beta 2, by the way. That's why I've written so little about the browser. IE 8 deserves several weeks of hard usage before review. I still find the UI to be too cluttered, but the new features are impressive and the security features are a whole lot less intrusive.

This post would have been my analysis and first impressions about Zune 3.0, if not for the day's early mail troubles. I'm hoping to give Zune its due tomorrow.

My initial test system is the HP Artist Edition Notebook—Pavilion dv2800t—with a 2.2GHz Intel Dual Core processor, 14-inch display (with 1,280-by-800 resolution), 128MB discrete nVidia GeForce 8400M GS graphics (shared to 767MB), 2GB of RAM, 250GB hard drive (5,400 rpm), multi-DVD burner (with LightScribe) and Windows Vista Ultimate Service Pack 1 64-bit. The Windows Experience Index rating is 4.0.

Previously, I used the 1.6GHz MacBook Air, with its small hard drive (80GB) and punier graphics (64MB discrete; 144MB shared). The Mac wakes from sleep much faster than the HP laptop. It's the software, definitely. Performance is otherwise pretty good, but, as I experienced using Vista before Service Pack 1's release, the user interface occasionally freezes or there's a sputter when switching applications.

That said, there is a noticeable improvement in an unexpected way. Vista 64-bit feels differently than the 32-bit version. The operating systems look the same, but, to me, the 64-bit version handles more smoothly. If I didn't know the kernels were different, I would guess they were separate Vistas. The 64-bit kernel is more locked down than the 32-bit one, which affects how all kinds of software interact with the operating system. Even security software is largely restricted from kernel access.

I don't have the right words to describe how Vista 64-bit feels different. When I got the computer, the better handling was immediately different. I'll call it a smoothness. I only checked to see if the HP laptop had Vista 64-bit after detecting the difference.