I'm not talking about superficial things. I'm talking about exciting features like scripting, which can help with some of the crazy group policy things that big active directory networks need. That also brings to mind some of the new GPOs like assigning printers based on location, device lockout based on priveldges, and (the thing I am most excited about): group policy-based QOS. These things couldn't be "tacked on" to WinXP without a network stack rewrite. At that point, it's a different OS. The network stack has been completely rewritten from scratch. The other thing that I am REALLY excited about is WIM, the new imaging format.

You're looking at it from an end-user standpoint. I'm looking at how much easier it will be to deploy and manage 20-30 systems using Vista.

Some other features of interest to sysadmins:

http://www.microsoft.com/technet/win...te/overvw.mspx