Some of your journalism coverage is very good, but all the bias I see makes me question your validity.

"Resource-intensive? Not so on new PCs" mean, buy new PC to get the same as before... with XP. Save your money, stay on XP

I have no desire to use Vista. My Dad has it on a new desktop and I saw no compelling reason to upgrade. Between GlassFish, Eclipse, Database servers, Apache, FF etc it hovers at 1.5 gigs of ram. If I were to upgrade to Vista it would render my current workstation unusable.

Vista better... PLEASE SPARE ME!!
I have 2 machines on XP [all fairly new by the way] 3 laptops and a desktop. 2 laptops new in last 3 months have Mista Vista, the Gista is that they run like crap. Nine time out of ten the only way to get one to shut down is to unplug and pop the battery, about 1 out of those 9 times Vista notices and come back in safe mode, mostly it is oblivious. The colors and fade nonsense of Vista I HATE, the local explorer with it's dozens of folders I HATE.

MS PLEASE give us a Classic runs and looks and menus the SAME as XP option!!! I am sick of relearning where everything is hidden for not good reason other than the kids in Redmond like to "mess" with our minds.

I could go on, but you get the point.

P.S. Office 2007… crap

If the new PC is not having enough power it will choke on Vista...many PCs that are sold with the new OS are underpowered...while they would run nicely with XP.

XP is far superior if you want to run dual boot with Linux. It is easy to reduce the XP partition to less than half the hard drive space with Partition Magic or any of its open source equivalents. You have to use a Vista tool to reduce the Vista partition and it does not reduce below half the original size.

In Oct'07 I got 2 new HP notebooks with Vista Home Premium, I would have had less compatibility/performance/hanging/crashing hassles moving from my old HP XE3 with MS W2k to a MAC/OSX notebook than I've had with Vista.
It seems that whenever Redmond (sales/marketing) decides to give an OS a real name it's not a good omen, remember Millenium.
I work as an IT consultant for 2 global companies neither of which are planning on implementing Vista at present because of the problems with it.

My son just started a class in Marketing. I graduated with a degree in Business Management with a focus in Sales and Marketing, before I went on to other degrees.

The first thing you learn is to listen to your customers.

Microsoft's attitude is part of the problem - not the solution.

The customers are TELLING you they don't want the cruft you're selling them. They're SHOUTING at you.

This means you need to STOP DOING it and rethink the OS.

I'm the IT guy for a 2 city, 100 computer network. Once a year, we roll out 20 -25 new workstations and retire the old equipment. As we were due for a batch, I was sent to two Microsoft classes to really get up to speed on Vista. I bought (with my own hard earned legal tender) a new Fujitsu with a dual core 2.0 Gig processor and 2 gigs of RAM. I also added a 7200 RPM drive once I got it to see if that would help. Help what? The sluggish performance, what else? I then bought a key drive as I heard that would help. It does - a little but why should I have to plug something in to get this boost, anemic though it may be? I turned off ALL UAC stuff as that was killing me. I removed completely Office '07 and installed Open Office and that helped. I got rid of Adobe Acrobat and substituted Fox-it. Another boost. I have done about everything I know of, have spent over $1300 and now I have a laptop ALMOST as speedy as my nearly 8 year old Winbook Z1 with Windows 2000 on it. I can't run a LOT of software that I need to and/or wish to under Vista and end up bringing my trusty Z1 with me to do network chores as, by mistake, my Vista machine is Vista Home Premium and it, of course, will NOT allow me onto domains.

My question is simple: what's to like? I have found nothing yet other than the very good looking chess game that comes with Vista.

And as for those 20 machines we just got? They are Dell's and we ordered them with XP Pro. It was decided that we have enough troubles as it is. They still came with Office '07 however and Adobe stuff along with Google everything which we did NOT ask for and were NOT told would be there but at least, they're XP!

NO VISTA is our watchword. Even if they fix it, it's still broke. And Office '07? It's good to have options; I COULD drop an anvil on my foot too - that's an option as well but I think I'll pass as I'd rather avoid the pain. Vista/Office '07 are the same.

Doctor Smith

Bill Gates is leaving at a good time.

If there is any other consideration (and there are an overwhelming number), for those of us who might consider upgrading to some version of Vista (I'm not one), the cost factor for those of us who are senior citizens living on Social Security (and maybe another small pension), as well as the ever-increasing number of those in the low income group, this is an impossibility. We managed to upgrade from 98SE to XP, and that's as far as we can go. I think I speak for most of us presently using XP - it works fine and we're happy with it and want to remain with it.

I am testing software on VISTA, XP and WINDOWS 2000. For most practical purposes XP and 2000 are the same OS. The menus are the same. Of course XP is bloated compared to 2000. VISTA is a whole new ball game. A VISTA install takes about 10 times the disk space of 2000 and of course takes an age. The 190Mbyte hot fixes also take a long time to install. Then almost everything is different! You have to learn it again. I would get a MAC but everything is different on a MAC. If I have to use VISTA, I might reconsider OS/X. This is the best possible time for Steve Jobs to open up OS/X to the masses.

VISTA is starting to annoy me. Even the video drivers don't work properly. XP is lipstick on a pig. VISTA is the whole makeup factory on a huge malformed rhinoceros. I have heard it called "The golden hardware hog" needed to drive hardware sales. You need at least 2Gbytes to run at any reasonable speed, more when you load applications. My partner sent her new Sony Vaio back because with Vista is was slower than her old one. Of course your friendly hardware vendor wants you to fall for VISTA. Otherwise, why would you buy a new computer? Reinstalling XP makes it run like a dream on a modest machine, of course performance decays as you add software, but I bet that is designed into VISTA as well. Running VMWARE WS6 on VISTA 64 bit appears use 3 times as much memory for the OS and first Guest as Fedora 8 64 and VMWARE WS6. VISTA is not a work of art.

Vista scrapes off drivers, tries to force peripheral hardware "churn".

When I search for help from vendors or tech boards, all I get is scorn: "You expect a new OS to support FOUR-YEAR-OLD PRINTERS? HOW RIDICULOUS!"

I think a B/W auto-duplex laser printer, or a 13"x19"-capable duplexing inkjet printer, or even a USB serial dongle, are tools that should be durable investments. Like the drills and saws in my shop; the forced obsolescence is disgusting. And it's not cheapo stuff: HP, Panasonic, ... "We're sorry, but would you like to buy one of our brand-new models that IS supported by Vista?"

All the hyperbole in the world won't change Microsoft's OS shortcomings. Vista? XP? Get a Mac.

This discussion (or argument depending on your point of view)takes me back 14 years when users complained "til the cows came home" about the cumbersome, cryptic, clumsy, etc...interface of Windows 95 and demanded that our company revert back to Windows 3.11. I would guess for many it is a personal preference or a certain level of comfort with XP that keeps them from moving to Vista.

Vista has finally convinced this long time DOS/Windows user (since the early 80's) to embrace the Mac. Leopard runs rings around Vista, costs a fraction of the price and has more truly useful things (like a backup that's worth a darn) built in. Steve Jobs must be just LOVING Vista. Microsoft is descending/Apple ascending.

I think Microsoft finally achieved what they were reaching for all this time, pure FLUFF, no substance just eyewash! I'm with you Don Babcock, I will say hello to Mr. MAC after many PC's. From MS-DOS 2 to Xtra Problems, I have had my fill of bad drivers and much lost/wasted time on all MS Windows problems and will walk out the MS Door!

I am still very happy with 2000, it does all I need and runs graphic paks very well.
Although I would like to move to Linux.

I think its very sad that a large company has come out with such a crap product, it makes you think how many other US products are as bad.!