I have used vista once on my friends computer And watched her have nothing but problems with it. Is it really that bad? Or does she just not know how to use it? I am only asking cause my new laptop arives in 10 days with Vista on it.

whisper, i bought a new laptop a few months ago, with vista installed on it...so far its been great!!
i have heard there were problems with it, but i can't complain.
i think it just takes a little getting used to is all.
Good luck

I like Vista. I used it to upgrade XP a few months ago and Vista actually improved my PC performance and fixed some conflicting issues I had before with XP. I guess it depends on what software you run and programs you have downloaded. Cause Vista isn't fully compatable with everything yet. Microsoft is always sending new updates to work on that though and soon enough it will be. But for me it's been great. Just my 2 cents.

a lot of bugs with it but getting better daily. MS is good with patches, it will probably be fine for you

Thank you everybody for your input. I know that it will take some getting use to, as I love my XP, but I guess I can not live in the pass forever.

My laptop came with Vista ... so far so good

I like XP better but what can you do when Vista is what comes on all the computer/laptops now. Vista has some bugs that I'm hoping in the near future will be resolved. For the most part it runs really well. :)

I don't think that XP is living in the past! I still run Win 98 on my business computers because it is small, fast, and not loaded with a lot of junk features like Vista. Most older software is not compatible with Vista and I believe that is by design. Many years ago, Vance Packard, wrote a book called "Planned Obsolescence" which I think really fits the bunch at Microsoft. It's all about making money. New features call for more updates and more profit, whether the features are any good or not. It's just a lure and forced upon us by a monopoly. New computer buyers have no choice in the matter!

Most of the good features in Vista can be downloaded and installed into XP for free! Did you know that? Thankfully, the new features which are troublesome and worthless can be defeated very easily. Soon, you will see many books arriving on the subject of making Vista work like XP and look like XP. Go figure!

For the average user, Vista will be okay, but for programmers and developers, like myself, Vista is one big PIA. ; )

Bob

Vista is nice and pretty, but that's about it.
It is a huge resource hog and company's are putting it on machines that barely meet the minnimum requirements, so some users are going to be upset with it.
I will give it one thing though, it was one h@ll of a lot more stable than the first releases of XP.
I did beta testing for MS and ended up with 2 copies of it, but I have yet to install it and keep it on a machine except for testing.

Vista is pretty, it cleaned windows up a lot. And for non tech-savvies, or people who just want a computer for the basics, it doesn't take a super awesome system to run it. It can be a resource hog though, so if you are buying/building a computer with it, boost your ram up a couple gigs. And be warned, the rest of the tech world is still catching up- my MP3 player and some of my favorite software can't live with our new laptop, it has to stay with my old clunker

i do have 2 gigs of RAM, with a 160GB hard drive. And a centrino duo processor so I should be fine. Thank you all for your input, my new laptop is finnally here. Still getting use to it but I am sure we will become good friends.

Oh yeah, that should run Vista nicely.