Okay, so after purchasing a new motherboard due to a non-vista related problem (I got angry with my mouse port...) the install DVD now results in a working installation (before, it was choppy and slow...).

Questions....

There is a default image that windows shows as as thumbnail that looks like a beach or a tropical setting, has anyone found this image anywhere on their hard disk?

Does anyone know how to get a thumbnail view in a folder, or how to enlarge the thumbnails you DO get? (they are so tiny!)

Have you guys gotten the hang of virtual picture/music folders? (really a good idea if you ask me...)

Anybody gotten AIM to work, or are we restricted to trillian/gaim?

Anybody tried HL2/CSS with any success? I have not installed HL2 yet but I suspect that I should ask before I try...

Does anyone think that the "tree" start menu is a step backwards? I think it's slow as hell, personally, and annoying. It would be cool if mousing over an object made it open, and then mousing off made it close (so you didn't have a bunch of open tree menus at the same time). That way, it could be like the start menu from 95/98/2000/XP but instead of opening horizontally it works like a tree menu.

Anybody found anything neat or interesting?

Cheers!

I like the new interface, but must admit that the new start menu is a bit slow when you quickly need to launch a program, it doesn't flow as nicely as the xp one.

One thing I liked in the Longhorn Alpha was when you were in a picture folder, when you hovered over a picture, it zoomed the picture by about 300%, I see this feature is removed from Vista Beta1.