Ars Technica has a write-up of some of the features available in yet-to-be-released Windows Vista Ultimate.

There's 3 features and none of them sound very appealing.

In reverse order: 1. a Texas hold 'em game. Yeah, we know, this is extremely popular. We have it featured in the latest James Bond movie. But "Hold 'Em may cost you time, but your money is safe because the chips are not real?" Pass. 2. BitLocker is kind of interesting. It encrypts your hard drive so it can't be stolen. It also can't be read by hacking tools or another operating system. Seems a lot more useful on laptops than desktop systems. Also makes it impossible for people to dual-boot with Linux and use their Vista files as they can now with XP. 3. DreamScene sounds distracting, to say the least. Instead of a still image, you're able to set a video file as your background. A few people think that ice melting or wheat blowing would be interesting but most people think it would be annoying beyond belief. I'm in the latter camp: isn't that the reason we hate the "punch the monkey" ads, because they're on the edge of our vision but moving?

We're hard-wired to treat movement on the edge of our vision as threatening - it might be a tiger about to leap on us. Or just another person with a club. Windows Vista Ultimate combines all the various features of Tablet Edition, Windows Media Center, etc. Hard to believe that it's going to be needed on one machine. So I think sales will be tiny.

I am still planning on going with Vista but am waiting for it to be available pre-installed on machines. I reserve the right to change my mind and buy a Mac.