Well, I'm gonna pretty much punt on that one. The Frankenbuild is software
piracy (albeit not very clever piracy).
It's a partial crack of the RTM using a few files from the beta. You must
have a valid beta key to get it it work. So, it allows CPP folks to
"upgrade" to the RTM if they can get hold of an RTM copy and follow the
instructions in the "crack." My wife, a pretty experienced "user" but not a
techie, read the crack instructions and said: "What?" But, she is still
running Win XP anyway.
Two catches:
(1) It will still "drop dead" the evening of May 31, 2007, just like all the
beta builds;
(2) MS has declared nuclear war on this one, for reasons that are unclear to
me -- I've posted some messages on the Vista Team Blog explaining my
confusion. To see the declaration of war, go to:
http://blogs.msdn.com/wga/archive/2006/12/14/the-frankenbuild-monster.aspx
Those running the Frankenbuild must turn off Windows Update now to keep
their copies from being deactivated. That means they have the RTM (until
May 31) but will get no fixes, updates, etc. If *that* were my only choice,
I'd stay with the last beta I had (5744) and hope it is supported by Windows
Update when the first round of patches, driver updates, etc. start to flow.
