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Vista's Home Premium Plus edition (which I used for this article), comes with a small selection of desktop utilities, such as a calculator, text editor, and screen capture program. Pre-installed, on most machines it also comes with a sixty-day trial version of MS Office, rather than the full version that earlier Windows operating systems included. Depending on the manufacturer, a new machine may also bundle third party software such as Norton Internet Security, or hardware helpers such as webcams and LightScribe drives. Quickplay and Acrobat reader are also included. These offerings are minimalist compared to what Fedora installs by default. Besides the operating system and the accompanying desktop utilities, Fedora includes an overwhelming selection of software.

Dia Diagram creation similar to what you might find with Visio, but at zero cost to the end user. While it remains in active development and may turn up some bugs along the way, the application is strong enough for everyday use. Open Workbench Open Workbench offers featured-filled scheduling and other project management tools. Free to use, even for commercial use. GIMPShop Built out of frustration with the cost of Photoshop and the existing UI provided by GIMP, GIMPShop enables graphic editing comparable to a Photoshop feature layout. Synfig Generally described as an industrial strength vector-based animation utility, Synfig provides powerful features to those in animation using vector graphics. Blender 3D modeling software providing the user with professional results. Wire-framing, texturing, Blender will do practically anything needed for 3D modeling.

Fedora and Vista both include automatic update systems. Vista includes individual ones for the operating system, Java, and -- if it's bundled -- Norton Internet Security, while Fedora's updates are available from a single applet. Nor, in an acknowledgement of the typical GNU/Linux user's preference for keeping control of their system, does Fedora update automatically by default. That choice may seem less convenient, but with a competent administrator, it's far safer than automatic updates -- if nothing else, administrators might want to wait to hear more about the reliability of updates before they install them.