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The article's conclusion:

1. Little originality, sometimes with a loss of elegance.
Everywhere you look, Microsoft has copied things that Apple has offered for quite some time in OS X. The User Account Control features, especially with the Vista Standard log-in, look a lot like Apple's user interface design. Too bad Microsoft doesn't let you lock and unlock things (leaving those settings permanent) the way Apple does. More than 15 years later, Microsoft is still following Apple in operating system design and bundled materials. With some notable exceptions (including IE7+, where it copied Mozilla, and the Windows Sidebar, where it bests Apple, Google and everyone in user-interface design), Microsoft is belaboring the point by reinventing the wheel, often with an overall reduction in productivity and usability.
I have no problem with Microsoft copying Apple's or any other company's best interface designs. We all win when that happens, and I wish Apple would steal the best things Microsoft does right back. What's really strange is when a company lifts good ideas and makes them worse, not better.
The bitter end
After more than 15 years reviewing Windows operating systems, I didn't just suddenly begin hating Microsoft or Windows. (Although I have to admit, OS X is looking better and better of late.) Windows Vista has plenty of good aspects to recommend it. In a future article, Computerworld will make plain the many good things about Windows Vista. When the product ships, we'll also make some final recommendations on the new operating system.

The 20 things:

20. Minimum video system requirements are more like maximum.
19. Aero stratification will cause businesses woe.
18. User Account Controls $#^%!~\!!!.
17. Two words: Secure Desktop.
16. No way to access the Administrator account in Vista Beta 2.
15. Some first-blush networking peeves.
14. Windows peer networking is still balky.
13. Network settings user experience went backwards.
12. Too many Network Control Panel applets, wizards and dialogs.
11. Display settings have changed for no apparently good reason.
10. Where are the file menus?
9. Windows Defender Beta 2 is buggy.
8. Problems without solutions.
7. Lack of Windows Sidebar Gadgets.
6. Media Center isn't all there and falls flat.
5. Faulty assumption on the Start Menu.
4. Installation takes forever.
3. Version control.
2. Price.
1. Little originality, sometimes with a loss of elegance.