Vista works fine on my home machine. I can't say that it's better than XP - it just operates differently. I'm not resistant to change when it's good (I used DOS from 1.0 to 6.22 and Windows since 3.0 (dabbled with 2.0)) - I'm quite happy with the ribbon model of Office 2007 (though I wish you could customize them), but nothing in Vista stands out as "different but much better", just "different".

My work machine, running Vista Enterprise, is a different story. It's a pig compared to my old machine, which was 2 years behind in hardware. Slow to boot, slow to respond, lots of "hold on 10 seconds while I just sit here and do nothing". We've rolled it out to tens of thousands of users. Our CIO actually published an article on his blog titled "Vista, it's not that bad". I can't say for sure whether it's Vista enterprise itself or our implementation of it.

Hey All, thanks for the perspectives on this. I know we used NT4 in our office for the first year after the launch of Vista and, I suspect there will be a move to Vista two years into Vista's life cycle (maybe sooner - I think we are forced to upgrade Office/Exchange or something else that me precipitate a move to Vista at some point). Either way, like most large corporations, our IS dept tends to be conservative.

I still haven't gotten to the "Windows XP is the greatest thing" part. When will that happen for me? :D

The pattern I see is that Microsoft introduces an OS that is full of bugs, runs slowly on current PCs, and creates a lot of incompatibilities that breaks a lot of existing software and training.

It takes about 3 years for MS to release Service Packs to address the bugs, for PC processor speed to increase enough to make the new OS as fast as the old one, and for companies to upgrade their software to work on the new OS.

Vista isn't there yet, which is why most of us computer types recommend against upgrading to it unless there is no choice. (Not much software requires Vista yet, but you can bet it's coming.) Wait a few more years, and Vista will be just fine. It just isn't the best choice right now.

I tried vista. I am a longtime windowns advocate. I didnt like it. SInce then, I have purchased 3 macs. I like Xp better than the Mac, and the Mac better than vista. I use PCs at work of course exclusively. It is intereseting...

My son had to get Vista recently when the screen size he deemed critical for his laptop wasn't offered with XP. He says the blue screen of death is a regular feature and he is a pretty ordinary user with limited software installed.

Then he either has bad software or a broken laptop. I have NEVER seen a BSOD on my Vista machines.

I haven't, at least not since SP1 and, even before that, it was only in the first few weeks of use when there wasn't a lot of compatible software and hardware.

I did an interesting experiment today, though. On my 2.0 GHz Core 2 Duo laptop equipped with Vista Business, I turned off all Vista effects. This laptop has always been reasonably fast -- certainly faster than any other machine in my house, including a 3.0 GHz P4 running XP. However, with the visuals turned off my laptop now screams! I've never seen anything like it -- all the pretty cosmetics really held that machine back.

What exactly did you disable and how?

Advanced System Settings - Advanced tab - under Performance click on Settings - click on the radio button for Adjust for best performance. Then click Apply.

Vista is bad as it is a totally different build as it's predecessor, XP. Many devices / software do not work as drivers are not created, like my dell printer, Dell did not want to make a driver for vista. However, I've read reviews somewhere that vista is able to make use of multi-cores better, ie using a multi-core built game on a quad core, XP was only able to utilize 100% on 1 core and 50% on another, the other 2 are basically idle. Vista was able to get all 4 cores running almost 100%.

The IT guys where I work categorically will not support Vista.

Yeah. The only reason I would remotely consider it is for 64 bits. XP64 is out of the question due to the lack of certain critical drivers.

I still use Wordperfect, also. Most of the time I find it superior to Word. To me it comes down to one feature: Reveal codes. Many times I've straightened out a Word file someone has made a total mess of by loading it into Wordperfect and finding the hidden problem.

I wouldn't use Vista in the office but my new home PC - purchased last Sunday - runs Vista phenomenally. When I do an operation for the first time, the effects and overall layout take me a few extra seconds to figure out (nothing major). I was a hold-out who only gave Vista a chance because my previous desktop had become unusable in practice - let's just say that my laptop is corporate running XP and I hadn't purchased a personal desktop since 2002.

I've been using Vista for a year on a Thinkpad T61 (C2D 2.2) which came with it pre-installed. I also use XP on my corporate T61 (C2D 1.8).

I had been intending to remove Vista and install XP on the personal laptop, but it's "not that bad". That said, it still bugs the heck out of me in certain things (particularly networking, and in particular Wireless management). I experienced a few BSoDs and lockups pre-SP1 but it has been relatively fine since then.

I like XP better though; and I was an early adopter of it and really liked it over NT4 and W2K.

I'm a Unix user by heart (and by profession), my laptops are mostly just web browser/email (although the BB plays the majority role for that these days)/Word/Visio, and dumb clients for SSH and X to the places of real work...

I've tried it both ways many times on my laptop and it doesn't make a huge difference. I don't know why it makes a difference on yours, but not mine. Transparency is the only setting that makes a noticeable difference on my laptop.