Who are Microsoft Vista's earliest adopters?

We'll confess: When we heard CompUSA was keeping its stores open until 2 a.m. for the Vista launch this morning, we scoffed. Sure, we reasoned, people will show up at the locations where they're giving away free gadgets and food, and a visit from a pro football player will certainly draw more than your typical techie crowd. But we were convinced that Office 2007 every other store would be filled with the sounds of crickets chirping, accompanied by bored employees drumming their fingers on idle cash registers.

But when we pulled up to the CompUSA in Culver City (Los Angeles) at 11:45 p.m., the parking lot was mostly full, and about 35 customers were inside eyeballing the new Vista machines and other products on sale. Clearly we'd been hasty in our judgment, but the question still remained: A PlayStation 3 is one thing, but who shows up at midnight for an operating system?

"It's not that I was rushing to get it," said Laurence Hilman, an attorney and real estate agent who lives in the area. "I knew I wanted it, and I'm going to be busy in the next few days, so midnight was just a convenient time for me." Hilman, who was wearing a Motorola headset to coordinate with his Rizr phone ("I usually wear the Bluetooth sunglasses--they're a little more comfortable," he said), had one copy each of Vista Business and Vista Ultimate in his cart, along with two copies of Microsoft Office Ultimate 2007.