I installed Vista on my home desktop machine. I say "installed" rather than upgraded because Microsoft's installation routine refused to let me upgrade. I spent a couple of hours on trying to figure out how to get around that and, in the end, decided that I'd rather install FireFox, Acrobat Reader, iTunes and the other programs that I want or need.
It so happens that Thunderbird 2 beta 2 was released recently. I tried "nightlies" or alphas and it was a little too experimental for me. No lost mail but just some inconsistencies in how things worked. Fair enough, they're alphas. And beta 1 had issues with message filters. So I dropped back to 1.5 In the meantime, I've started using IMAP and procmail and message filters are less important.
In about 48 hours of testing, beta 2 seems pretty solid. One problem I had was that I wanted to have the same contact info on my desktop and laptop machines. So I've started using Plaxo again. It's working pretty well.
However, the Plaxo add-on isn't compatible with anything past 1.5.X I found Bumping Extensions and it's got some useful tips for dealing with this situation.
The one I found most helpful was this:
This method changes one setting in your Mozilla Firefox configuration. This is a really easy and quick way to get your extension to install again.
- Start Mozilla Firefox
- Type about:config in the address bar
- Type extensions.checkCompatibility in the filter bar
- only exists in Mozilla Firefox 2.0.0.0 and later
- Right click the entry and choose modify
- Change the value to false
For Thunderbird, you just need to do "options", "advanced", and it should be on "general". Pick config editor and you're in the right place. You can just type in "check" and Thunderbird will show you the matches.
PS: I don't know why Mozilla switched from "extensions" with Thunderbird and FireFox 1.5 to "add-ons" with the 2.0 series. Whatever.