Windows Vista brings a lot to the table. This blog entry gives a pretty good summary of what it brings to the table.
Some of the things to note, are the Restart Manager which allows the system to break file locks without restarting the system. Improved I/O Cancellation will actually allow you to cancel a request to open or read a file (not sure why it took them 20 years to get this one hammered out).
There are a bunch of other things. Go check it out.
Read the complete post at http://www.dotnettipoftheday.com/blog.aspx?id=88