Mike, this is by no means a criticism against you, but jesus, vista is fine if you're not a pussy and run it with the windows classic skin. if you have low end hardware it's a pain to run it on full aero and stuff, drop it down to the old skin and suck up the old school. XP runs better from the word go, but if you spend a day titting with vista and getting it right for your needs it'll be all fine and dandy.