IT is faster than Vista about as fast as XP is with my system.
P4 3.4GHz with 3GB DDR2 RAM.
The reason why i say it is tricky is because it doesnt act at all like a desktop OS. IE for example is under lockdown. You can not visit a site in IE unless you have it added to your safe list. That is unless you remove it from Restricted Mode.
To get Aero turned on so that you dont have Windows Classic Style with the Vista start menu can be tricky. But i think i posted how i did that.
Then of course you have the Anti-Virus/Firewall stuff. I posted that you cant use just a normal AV cause it is a server. You have to find a specific Server AV to work. But NOD32 2.7 works just fine on it. I did not try any firewalls though.
Now my personal opinion if someone should run this as a desktop OS. No. It is a Server OS and there are many things about it that i did not uncover in my 2 weeks of working with it that could adversly affect your experience. Plus i can not confirm that all apps that work on Vista work on Server 2008. Jsut the bunch that i use.
But to each their own. If you have used Server 2003 as a desktop Os then you most certainly should use Server 2008. but i can not say for sure that Games will work on it as i have not tested any games on it.