IT Heads: Vista Business Best Practices on a Domain?

I always http://www.mydigitallife.info/2007/09/17/disable-and-turn-off-windows-vista-search-indexer-and-indexing-service/ - but, I am a power user/developer-type. Being able to search for files they have missplaced may be a feature the average user likes... I have found that with enough RAM (4gb+) and x64 on a known hardware configuration (Dell laptop) that Vista SP1 is actually very nice.

Vista only indexes when the machine is idle, and turning it off removes one of Vista's best features. I would recommend leaving it on. I don't have any experience at all with Autocad Inventor, but the fact that it's not supported doesn't mean it won't work. Test it before deployment. Adding a Vista machine to a domain is no different than adding an XP machine. I have somewhat limited experience with Vista machines on domains, but I've seen no failures, loss of connectivity to domains, logon problems etc. with Vista on a Windows 2003 AD domain. I haven't seen any unusual traffic coming from Vista machines, and frankly that sounds like an application problem that should be easy to resolve. Office 2007 will work fine and you shouldn't have any driver problems with your LaserJets. If you're using any plotters, it's possible that you may have driver issues, especially if the plotters are old. I think the biggest thing is to test first. Don't blindly roll out 30 machines and then find out they all have the same problem. Get a few representative volunteers and set them up for a few weeks, paying special attention to any issues they have. There is no reason to dismiss Vista because of (mostly wrong) things you've read in the media, but you also shouldn't implement any new system without testing it first. I've been using Vista for going on 18 months, and I have no more problems with it than I did with XP, and I like Vista's functionality and user interface better. http://www.edbott.com/weblog/index.php puts out good Vista news and articles and the http://www.howtogeek.com/ has good tips. Paul Thurrott's http://www.winsupersite.com/is also a good resource. http://windowsitpro.com/ and http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/magazine/default(TechNet.10).aspx are both useful.

Thanks for all the feedback guys! Just a note, I meant Inventor 2009 (which is Vista compatible), not Inventor 11. I use Spotlight all the time on my Mac. I know it is similar to the indexing Vista does (although I heard not as quick). So, I think I'll keep indexing on. I used to turn it off with XP because I used programs like copernic. CNC: thanks... I'll check those sites out. Good idea to test machines first!