Having just installed the Microsoft Expression Suite, Expression Design (ala Photoshop/Fireworks), Expression Web (please don’t be Frontpage 2007! Oh god please!) and Expression Blend (a design driven Windows UI development environment). My initial thoughts:

After installing the required dotnet framework 3.0, the installation process for all three applications was painless. Expression Web’s installer is more polished that that of the others but that is to be expected as, of the three, it is the only finished release (Design and Blend both being CTP’s). I was slightly perplexed at being given the choice of “Regular”, “Custom” and “Complete” installs as the custom install gave no configuration options just the option of installing the whole product. I would imagine that when Design and Blend reach there 1.0 releases that they will share the same slick install process that Web currently sports and installation configuration will no doubt be possible.

The fist time you start any of the applications you are prompted for a serial key and led through the required product activation. Once the activation is completed you are met by a rather different User Experience than you might have expected from a Microsoft application.

I have to say while I like the dark UI, which I presume is designed to fit better with the overall Vista look and feel than that of XP, I did find it a little hard to read on my laptop’s WSXGA+ display. The dark theme is very cool but perhaps could benefit from slightly higher contrast white on dark as opposed to grey on dark.

Overall, a very sexy looking application suite though and I’ll be very interested to see how they perform.