I don't know how this one slipped under everyone's radar. On Feb. 27, Microsoft released a new operating system that can replace Vista. It has all the patches and fixes that are in Vista SP1, and runs nearly all the same software, but runs it faster. Early reviews show that Windows Workstation 2008 is the speediest and most secure version of Windows to come along in a decade.There is one small problem, though. Microsoft doesn't actually sell a product named "Windows Workstation 2008" in a neat little package. You have to create it yourself -- from a copy of the newly released Windows Server 2008. I'm a fan of Windows Server 2008 because it is the only version of Windows that heeds the advice of Antoine de Saint-Exupery: "Perfection is achieved, not when there is nothing more to add, but when there is nothing left to take away."

The resulting freedom from bloat gives "Windows Workstation 2008" a major performance advantage. Some tests show it's almost 20% faster than Vista. It's a Windows developer dream platform thanks to its built-in server features like IIS, plus Hyper-V for creating virtual machines.

It can be a bit tricky to configure Server 2008 as a desktop OS, but thanks to instructions in a Microsoft employee's blog and at an independent Web site, it's certainly doable by a technical user. Vista drivers written to the WDDM model are compatible with Server 2003, which means you should be able to use any hardware that has a Vista driver. The only nut that doesn't seem to be cracked yet is getting Media Center functionality to work, but I suspect even that is just a matter of time.