The party's on - Vista is here

Windows Vista is officially being released tomorrow morning:

Microsoft Corp. released the new version of Windows to consumers this morning, ending one of the most challenging periods in its corporate history and trying to get the world's computer users to take notice.

In New York on Monday, acrobats hung from the side of a building to form the Windows Vista logo, and Microsoft billboards illuminated Times Square. In Paris, the Champs-Élysées was lit up in Windows colors. In India, dancers performed around the Taj Mahal. In Australia, Microsoft used skywriting to garner attention.

And in Redmond, employees held a massive party at the company's headquarters.

Congratulations to the team at Microsoft on this achievement. Windows Vista looks to be a very promising improvement on Windows XP. While there isn't likely to be an upgrade stampede, before long Vista will undoubtedly dominate the market as the operating system of choice.

This Wikipedia article has some good screenshots and an in-depth overview of what has changed with the latest version of Windows. Microsoft also has an official page for Windows Vista that's worth checking out.