oh its display driver crashes several times an hour in MCE which is totally down to nvidia being useless (my new ati card works perfectly)
I tend to kick seven shades of stuff out of my system and it has very reassuring stability that XP never had.
that said UAC is a piece of stuff as is the bundled crap, quite why anyone would want to buy a shiny new 4/8 core machine next jan and install XP on it is a bit like watching VHS on my HDTV , it works but kinda defeats the point

imo, the best way to see if vista's right for you is to try it yourself. on my old box, it ran, but the inability to run my programs made me want to trash it. then i snuck my way into a new PC, and am using XP Pro until nVidia comes out with "working" drivers, and until the software patches come in. I don't mind giving up some pieces of software, and in truth, i probably should, but i want proper drivers for my video card, and sound card. by the way, i tested Vista Business, and it was very nice, but with this newer box, it should be even better.

OLD PC
AMD Athlon 64 3400+ 754 socket 2.4GHz 512K L2
2GB DDR-400 Crucial Memory PC3200
ATI Radeon X850 AGP 256MB GDDR3
ECS mATX mainboard
Maxtor 300GB 7200RPM 16MB Cache
1xDVDRW
1xDVDROM
Sound Blaster X-Fi Extreme Audio
970 Watts Total power (550+420)

NEW PC
AMD Athlon 64 X2 4600+ AM2 Socket 2.4GHz 1MB L2
1GB DDR2-667 SuperTalent Memory PC5400
nVidia GeForce 7800 GT OC 256MB GDDR3
Gigabyte mAtx Mainboard
Maxtor 300GB 7200RPM 16MB Cache
Western Digital 500GB 7200RPM 16MB Cache
2xDVDRW
Sound Blaster X-Fi Extreme Audio
550 Watt Titan PSU

my new box is amazingly fast in XP, and i can't wait to see it in Vista. Should be amazing! just need decent nForce Drivers...

heh. my NEW machine is at the specs of your OLD machine

Runs well tho, except for the video

It means Original Equipment Manufacturer, a WinXP OEM is the version that is only intended to be shipped to system builders.

i loved that box, but my boss was on me to upgrade to PCI-E. hmm...maybe because we're a gaming center, and need DX10 support? still waiting for a few hundred bucks for that 8800 card... maybe he should pay for it...

And it seems like at least one manufacturer has seen the light! [url=http://news.com.com/Dell+brings+back+XP+on+home+systems/2100-1046_3-6177619.html]Dell Offers XP on new Systems again[/url]

And to Mr. Fourth Letter. Obviously you did not read my post. It's not so much that I dislike Vista (even though I do... I believe it is a severely overpriced, feature bloated, DRM-infested pig). It's that the applications which I require to perform my job do not, and will not, support running on Vista for some time - I'm sure at least a year. And I'm not the only one in my field with the same situation/concerns.