It's been quite a new technology week for me.

Ok. My home office took a huge power surge, and even with a big PDU, my main desktop took a beating and wouldn't boot - the hard drive was flaking out.

I finally had a new drive installed and I cloned the stuff off the old one so I could recover e-mail, music and financial files. The backup software I was using was working... but Murphy's law being what it was, I hadn't backed up in about 2 weeks and the previous day, the backup had failed.

I decided to try out Vista.

Vista SP1 has been released and I took the plunge - I have way too much software to fully go over to the mac, and now that I can load safari onto windows..... at least I don't have to deal with all that embedded Active-x from my mac. (may sell my 12" g4 powerbook and get a newer one later this year).

It hasn't been too painful. For $650, I bought a quad core AMD with 3 GB of memory, a lightscribe DVD burner and a 750 GB hard drive. The performance blows away my Dell dual core Intel with XP pro and 2 GB of memory. It's incredibly fast.

All of my data - including mail and quicken files ported easily. Most of my files are external drives anyhow, so I can't see filling that 750 GB drive.

A new project for me will be to build a consolidate music library - itunes and windows media player.

Also, for those of you who are not backing up your files, check this out. Mozy was purchased by the company that I work for.... and makes backing up your PC very easy. No more excuses.

http://mozy.com/

You can back up 2 GB for free and try it. For a home system, it's $4.95 per month, unlimited storage.

Hey Kat-

I may soon be looking for a new computer...it's the old conundrum; I need to upgrade to stay competitive, my computer's a couple years old now, and it has some issues needing repair...but if I take a "real" job, then I won't be needing such a high powered (and relatively expensive)graphics oriented machine as I would to replace this one. However, seeing as how I have a lot of contract work and no real job offers on the table, I may just bite the bullet and go for it.

The software I'm running (Solid Edge, and I-deas 12NX) use OpenGL for hardware rendering, and I've heard major horror stories with Vista and OGL. I'm assuming the service packs have dealt with most of that, but I'm leaning more towards XP64 to play it safe.
Are you familiar with it?

Here's a harder question for you, though, since you're a hardware guru .... I'm looking to use a smaller (80 to 150 gig) 10,000 rpm hard rive for the OS and applications software, and a 500 gig or so normal hard drive for file storage. What I've noticed is, the 10k rpm ones are listed as ATA 150, and the 7200 rpm larger drives are listed as ATA 300...does that really mean anything? The MoBo and processor I'm looking at is the Core2 Quad 2.5 ghz (q9300) and an Intel X38BT mobo. It says it supports ATA 133.
Do you know of any websites where finding performance specs for that sort of thing (hard drives etc)that is reliable?

Anyway- sounds like you've done well there, and I'd really like to go with Vista if it's stabilized and compatible.

As for backups, sheesh....I am so bad about that. Time to burn a couple dvd's. I've thought about the online storage, but I'm also required to have hard copies of stuff for my customers.

Later- a gray day here....need some sunshine to restart my motor

TonyY

Vista seems very stable. I only had to apply 1 patch to the service pack, because my screen saver wouldn't turn on with a laser mouse attached.

Most of my XP software was compatible and loaded/started. The only exception was Adobe Acrobat Professional - and after I installed it, it downloaded a huge update and basically upgraded itself. So I was pleasantly surprised that I could postpone major software upgrades to all of my webmaster products.

As for the ATA drives.... I am working for a storage company.... while the company doesn't manufacture drives.... it is the largest buyer of drives in the world.

Basically it's physics and geometry. The more capacity a drive has, the denser the bits are packed on the track on the platter - that's to keep the small form factor and not add any more height (due to # platters. So to read all that capacity, you have to slow the rotation of the drive from 15,000 RPM down to 7,200 RPM. The lower the capacity, the faster the rotation.

Also.... all drives these days are pretty much the same capacity. The manufacturer "turns off" some capacity to make 150 GB or 300 GB drives. We call it a short stroke - basically the read/write heads only reach about 50% into the platter. The servo mechanisms are then adjusted to spin the drive faster.

Does not matter to me how much capacity is on the hard drive in the cabinet.... I usually re-format the file system to present multiple drives. That way it's easier to back up the smaller, "virtual" drives.

If you're looking for better performances by separating the OS and page file from everything else, the diff between 7,200 and 10,000 RPM will not be noticeable on your new Vista PC. You're better off sinking your $$$ into 4 GB of memory for better response time and performance. The only way you would benefit from a separation is if you undersized the memory - and were forced to page out from memory to the page file. (That means that the OS writes memory blocks to a file in order to free up RAM to use it).

If you're separating for better file system management, the diff between 7,200 and 10,000 will not make a difference.

A 150 GB drive does not cost that much less than a 750 GB drive these days. You're better off carving up the disk via NTFS.

BTW, we're selling 1 TB drives - with 1.5 TB due by the end of this year, 2 TB around February of 2009. Many years ago, 1 TB of disk storage filled a data center the size of a football field and would take 96 hours to backup to tape. It's amazing that we can have these capacities in our homes.

OH NO! More geek speak...RUN AWAY; RUN AWAY; RUN AWAY!!

yeah Billy, we speak geek fluently.

Kat-
Thanks for the info, I was going to use 4 gig anyway...Tiger Direct has a lot of stuff with rebates right now, IF I pull the trigger today or tomorrow. Dropping the 10k hard drive knocked 149 bucks off right there, which almost pays for the 2 more gig or ddr3 12800 memory. I have to convince the "treasurer" of my business (my better half) that I'm trying to go as cheap as possible and get something that will do. I won't mention the 150 for the sound card that will allow me to make much better recordings

Anyway, thanks- I'll check into that backup service, that's pretty cheap "insurance". A good buddy of mine who works for Cisco, we had talked years ago about how cool would it be to have an online backup service...now that bandwidth has "arrived" around here anyway, it actually can be done.

Thanks for the info- BTW, the opengl issue appears to be resolved....apparently Tom's Hardware ran some tests that had everyone up in arms about 50% less performance, etc, and after UGS did their own tests with updated drivers and turning off some feature, I think it was user account access something or other, it actually ran better than XP pro.
Major stain on Tom's reputation...it appears he has a bias, well duh....most reviewers do.

They also said don't bother with the 64 bit OS, unless your specific software takes advantage of it, or you want to use more than 4 gig memory...right now, that sounds nice, but not gonna happen- I'd love 8 gig.
Another also, one guy said most hard drives don't have transfer speeds high enough to overload the ATA 100 bus, much less the 300 unless it's a 15k rpm scsi or something.....and who has the bucks for that...main reason I was thinking about it was, for faster loading and software operation, as in faster response times to icon clicks- but like you said, most of the program should be residing in memory anyway, so the higher disk speed won't help unless it's paging.

Well, back out to get some sun (while staining my deck, gotta get chores done while the sun shines...)

We just upgraded to Vista at work. I'm still running on XP Home at home on all 3 computers (2 desktops/1 laptop). The only major problem we've had is our database. We run a customized database that is on an Access platform. The Vista Access has different file extensions and converting has been a nightmare. Also we had an issue with more thanone person being allowed into the database at a time. We've worked through most things, but our biggest issue are macros, especially ones that write to new tables. Ugh...a nightmare.

there are some subtle things.... mostly due to the changed security model. Yes, Vista is more secure, but if you always run in "administrator" mode.... you're still installing programs and most likely clicking OK when you access something on the Internet.

The differences in the Office Professional products are subtle, but as you point out Bonnie... if the programmer hard coded some things (like file extents), it has to be handled after the upgrade.

I hit a file ownership problem. All of my webmaster files are on external drives, and the files were all marked with my XP owner number (a big long honking number). I could read the files and edit them with my programs, but could not save them to the same file name. I had to change the owner permissions for the entire hard drive.... took about an hour to go thru 500 GB.

My computer crashed on me Wednesday after Vista Service Pack 1 was installed. It might have also been because I put new memory DIMMs in. Either way, a technician came on Thursday and took the computer back to the repair place I had called. I got the computer back on Friday, but the keyboard and mouse would not work once Vista had started up. This is because a different technician used a different keyboard and mouse during the repair process. So, now I have to wait until tomorrow to call the place and have someone take my computer and the keyboard and mouse. I'm under a 30-day warranty. So, the extra repair work is free. I hope to have my computer back on Tuesday and I'll have it back to normal by Friday at the latest. There's tons of software that I need to re-install. Only the essentials were installed during repair.
In the meantime, I'm using the computer in the guest room, which is next door to my room where my computer is. I moved my three 250 GB external drives in there. It's a good thing I decided a few years ago to put the majority of my files on external drives.
Other than that, overall I've been fine with Vista. I use the Windows Classic display mode, which is made to look like the Windows 95/98/ME/2000 display.

Installing memory is not as straightforward as it might seem. For most computers, manufacturers require that the memory cards are in symmetric pairs... ie. (2) 1 GB plus (2) 512 MB = 3 GB, etc. Anything else will probably crash the computer and possibly corrupt the OS.

Sounds like the repair place needs to install a couple of device drivers.

I had taken all four 512 MB DIMMs out and put in the new 1 GB DIMMs. Then, when the computer wouldn't boot, I put two of the 512s (the ones that were installed when I got it last May) back in the slots they had been in. The computer booted, but then the crashing began after startup. The blue screen of death included the words "Dumping Physical Memory."
What the repair place, a Freeport(LI)-based place called Computer Mechanics On-Call, did was reformat the hard drive and re-install Vista. As I said, they used one of their keyboards and mouses during the reformat/re-install. So, my keyboard and mouse were not recognized outside of boot mode.
It's been a frustrating weekend having to share the computer with my mom or sister if they ever need to use it. And they did need to use it at times tonight.

I got my computer back on Monday. It ended up crashing/resetting twice more within three hours of getting it back. But once I took the extra sound card out, everything's been fine (knock on wood).

Mike, apparently running multiple cards is supposed to be a feature in Vista...but I can't find anything useful on microsoft's website. You can try getting the updated drivers (if there are any) for both sound cards, and re-install them one at a time. If it worked before under XP, it should work, you'd think, IF the drivers are updated for Vista. Some sound cards may not be so lucky, guess it depends on the brand.
However, doing a google on two sound cards in vista, came across several people who are doing just that, using one for one program and the other for a different one....something about setting the exact device in the program options rather than accepting the default. Guess it also depends on why you want to use two cards.
Anyway- good luck!

Should be getting my components for my new system today via UPS- the case came yesterday.

Also on a side note, my old HP Deskjet, which has served me faithfully for 6 or so years, decided to dump the contents of an almost full black cartridge all over my desk, and of course down onto our vanilla colored berber carpet. Made one helluva mess. Got most of it cleaned up, which is a relief.
Anyway, that pretty much ruined the printer, it'd take more time and effort to disassemble and clean everything than it was worth.

So, went to Staples, they have a COLOR LaserJetCP1518ni on sale for about 300. Makes for absolutely excellent prints, even on plain paper. And, the best thing is, NO SMUDGES...one thing I always hated about printing anything with the inkjet, if your fingers are damp in any way, it smudges.
Time to make up some new business cards.

I'll let you know how Vista shapes up in a few days, I'm guessing it'll take that long to get the new computer set up.

I am still tinkering... mostly ftp accounts and similar minor things.

Tony.... just watch for the file ownership problem....you can read them but not save them to the same file name until you resolve it. Also... if your old drive is SATA or IDE, you can buy a little adapter which plugs into the drive - and has a USB cable attached. You can plug the USB cable into your new Vista system. The USB will power up your old drive and you can browse the contents.

Not all XP compliant h/w works with Vista and sometimes there is a driver or setting to fix it. Sometimes not.

Good to know a safe place to go when I need a translator.

always happy to translate for you, Billy ...

All in all, I'm pretty happy with Vista. I just saw the new Mac commercial, the one where PC sings the Vista Blues and the dog howls.

I think I'm doing well with Vista because the PC is new and I didn't try to upgrade or transition. Much of the pain comes from Hardware that just can't handle Vista.

My old PC hasn't crashed since I got it back. Even the drive that wouldn't spin up has been working (I cloned a new drive). So since the motherboard seems OK, I'm going to give to a family member and their PC will become the video game PC for the grandchildren. But no.... I'm not going to upgrade wither PC to Vista, I don't think it's worth the time. My relative will have a tough time adjusting to the search and folder functions in Vista, even with "classic" turned on.

Kat-
my office looks like a wreck, with all the empty boxes and instruction sheets etc laying everywhere, but I still haven't booted up my new computer- been too busy working on my son's car. Maybe today, I'm hoping....

Was told by the sys admin at my main customer that there's issues with Vista and the software we use. So, now I'm thinking about a dual boot system, but not sure I want to go that route totally.
Isn't it possible to do this: I need to use my existing box's XP CD, which would then be on two computers, I know MS has issues with that, but iut should let me do it for 30 days so long as I don't officially activate it, yes? I thinking, if it turns out after testing it that Vista will indeed work ok, then I can remove the XP. If not, then I guess I can switch the OS completely and put Vista on the old box.
Figured you may know, being the "lead geek" here.....

Glad to hear it's working for you.
Later
TonyY

A brief side note: The PC in the Mac commercials is comedic actor/writer John Hodgman from "The Daily Show." The Mac is actor Justin Long.

Tony... I think you're better off to install your software and try it on Vista rather than waste time on a dual boot. You already know your stuff works on XP - and you still have your old PC. Your s/w vendor should allow for install/de-install options while you try it.

I was told that my Adobe suite wouldn't work too well on Vista because some of it was CS2 vs CS3. It's working just fine. Yes, I don't get the full spectrum enhanced display under XP either.

My computer crashed again 20 minutes ago. When it had reset, the problem report suggested I download Service Pack 1. I'm doing that now. I'm very worried that this will lead to more crashes and I'll be right back where I was two Wednesdays ago with crash after crash after crash. And this time, I'll go right to Dell for help.

Well,so far, it's been rocky...tried to install XP, it would never get past a certain point with the hardware. I think it had to do with the MoBo bios; I couldn't get it to run the intel utility at all.
Then, I installed Vista Business 64, it actually made it all the way, installed the updated bios, drivers for the video card, Vista SP1, etc. Everything runs, but it'll only go for a little while (like 10 to 20 minutes) before it blue screens and memory dumps. Obviously haven't installed the application software yet, have to trace down the hardware crash issues. What scares me is this could take days, or might be solved in a moment, you just never know.

I suspect the video card, but have to dig into this.

Later
TY

Make sure you install the SP1 from April. I would not have gone to Vista without it... and I figure that the march to it is inevitable unless I want to keep maintaining an older system.

There are also several patches after SP1 for video, mouse and audio.

Thanks Kat, I'll check that- it came on a cd, but separate from the Vista package.
Haven't had much time to mess with it today, but I plan to this evening.

Thankfully, SP1 installed without a problem and my computer hasn't crashed (knock on wood).

My computer crashed again 25 minutes ago right after start-up. It hasn't crashed since, but me saying that will probably lead to another one.

Mike... I'd recommend that you use Dell's online tool to evaluate your hardware and make sure that the bios, the intel flashes and everything else is Vista compatible.

No computer should be crashing as frequently as yours is crashing... you might have something in an IRQ that needs to be reconfigured.

http://www.pchell.com/hardware/irqs.shtml

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interrupt_request

Hi Kat, Bassix, Bonnie, Mike, and Billy G.,

This is good I am in the market for a new computer and wow
I hear buy Vista, no don't buy Vista you can't use any XP, get Apple no don't get Apple. A guy at work a real true blue geek.I love geeks cause they know their stuff. This guy use are you guys sitting down get ready for this now he use Linux and loves it to death. Talk about being in control of your computer.

I so feel ya' Billy G. I don't know the geek ling-go I am just trying to find a computer I am comfortable with I am still researching. Kat is on it.

Yeah Pam. We love linux. Only problem is that there's not much you can do with it (yet) in your house. I can't run much of the software that I use - and I could move to Mac, just that I don't want to pay $5,000 for software that I already own on Windows.

I have not had any problems at all with my new computer.... only the screen saver problem due to the mouse.... the screen saver didn't kick in because the mouse always appeared "active" even when it wasn't.

The file properties on my external drives - was easy to resolve.

If you're considering an upgrade, download the compatibility tools from the computer manufacturer - and make sure your h/w is compatible.

I think for most users... it's the small changes which will make them crazier. Like in all the Office products - there are these big ribbons with icons which take the place of the menu bar. Excel is driving me nuts... for example, I couldn't find the "save as" option to save my spreadsheet.

How non-intuitive of me not know to press ctrl-alt-a to bring up that menu. HUH? Oh I guess I should have bought a new microsoft keyboard for Vista..... sigh.

OK, after a long night, we're running Vista Business 64. Barely.
What a pain in the a$$ to setup, but it DID work, when XP refused to get past a blue screen. I am still going to do a dual boot, hopefully the driver updates will allow XP to install too.

I had to do an update to the bios for the MoBo, disable the onboard video and audio, and then restart the installation. Once it was running, I immediately did the SP1, then started installing the video card drivers etc.
Still don't have the onboard networking working, but I've downloaded the latest Intel updates for all that software too. Communication with the outside world is next on the fix list.

Now here's a pain too (on my current XP box)- we recently updated our phone plan, and got new phones, plus unlimited texting (but not the blackberry services, just at&t). That actually is saving me 30 bucks a month, since we were on the pay as you go, and my daughter would freak without it....her generation uses it a lot, I have to admit I like it too. Anyway, got a Blackberry Curve, which of course comes with software cd....sorry stuff installs Roxio media manager, but everytime I reboot the thing, it continues to "gather information for installation", and it screwed up my XP cd writer (which of course I'm using to burn cds to transfer all these updates for the Vista box).
Then when I try to uninstall it, boom, up comes the "gathering info" popup again.
I did find a fix on the net from microsoft and it worked- but I guess this means I can't use the media (mp3 and video)features of the Blackberry until I get it figured out.

Maybe I'm overdosing on high tech stuff here, but this gets frustrating- good thing they don't build cars like this.

Oh crap, they do

Later
TY

I feel for you.... after the power surge, I had to rebuild my laptop and the old XP desktop..... the desktop was easier than the laptop, took forever to find the drivers on the dell website. I re-installed as much as I could from the CDs... just enough to get the internal ethernet card working. When I finally connected to the net .... I entered the service tag from the laptop on the dell site, and started downloading all the latest drivers.

Re: the Blackberry... I could not get my new Blackberry to synch to Office 2007 with that mess of a Roxio version. The Web forums are full of unhappy users who can't sync their calendars. I ended up de-installing the Roxio version and downloading the last version before RIM integrated with Roxio. Everything synchs up and it won't screw up your drivers.

As for the file transfer....ack! It's easier to use a straight thru cable to connect the ethernet ports... or put them both on your router.... once they have IP addresses, use ftp to move the files.

thanks-
yeah, I plan on using the usb hard drive to backup everything, but I'll just do cat5 to cat5 once I'm to that point.

Had to back track a bit, and it was my fault...before trying to install xp again, (on a different partition,) I tried to change the memory timing, and the system just "cranks the starter", doesn't ever boot up, tries repeatedly but never "catches".
If I put the jumper on "configuration", then it'll start up, but no screen or anything. So, had to take out the cmos battery. Stupid me, after it didn't work, re-read the instructions, you have to unplug the power supply too- it has to go dead to reset the bios, and being plugged in keeps it alive I guess. We'll know in a few minutes, it says wait an hour.
Anyway- once that's back on I'm going to reflash the bios, and try something else I discovered....how to turn off or on ACPI support- xp may or may not see that the mobo has it, you can press f5 when installing and it says press f6 for scsi or raid drivers, and that will take you to the HAL (hardware abstraction layer) where you can pick which type of ACPI you have. It's a long shot, but maybe that will help xp get past the blue screens.
If that doesn't work, I am going to find an old video card to put in, pretty sure that's an issue also....Vista installed it, but said the drivers were old and wouldn't get out of VGA mode- I updated, and it runs fine now, looks fantastic- and fast.
I'm also going to set the bios to the defaults or the safe mode if it has that, to see if I can get by the video card driver issue....I think my components are too new for this old xp cd to recognize. Would be easier if I had an xp sp2 (or 3)boot cd.....

The bluescreens (which I had previously referred to as crashes) kept on coming last night and this afternoon. Apparently, my nVidia NForce SATA Driver needed to be updated. I updated it, but also uninstalled SP1. I really hope this finally puts an end to the bluescreens of death.

I would not recommend running Vista without the service pack....

So, I should re-install it? What if I get more bluescreens even though I updated that nVidia driver?

As we've been discussing, incompatible h/w and drivers can be a problem - and it's hard for the average person to distinguish between that and the core operating system. more than likely, it was the driver and video card that was crashing it.

Wait 24 hours, then re-install. If it crashes, you can use system restore to roll back.

Chances are - the service pack didn't 100% de-install anyhow, and now the system is mixed.

yes.... because the system configuration "gens" itself at install and specifies the h/w in the registry. XP wouldn't understand new devices to gen.... if you bought a new device, chances are fro XP you'd install a driver from the product's CD or from the net. But from scratch... with an old CD....

I don't know if Microsoft still ships SP2 CDs. They are trying to march us all to Vista.

TY,

You can order an SP3 CD.... maybe that will fix the problem for your dual boot.

http://www.microsoft.com/windows/products/windowsxp/sp3/default.mspx

for everyone else... this is interesting - I missed this anouncement last week:

Announced on June 5th:

http://www.infoworld.com/article/08/06/05/How-to-get-and-keep-Windows-XP-after-June-30_1.html


http://www.microsoft.com/windows/products/windowsxp/future.mspx




There are questions and answers on the page ... basically, updates will be free until April, 2009. After that, users can purchase extended support from Microsoft until 2014. Shrink wrapped copies will no longer be sold after June 30, 2008. Dell,HP, Lenovo, etc - will stop selling XP after June 30th.

Kat- well, it's back. First thing I did was go buy a copy of XP Pro SP2. (Glad I did it, after reading that article!)
I was going to have to anyway, for a dual boot, within the 30 days, and they don't let you update without having it activated.

Had to do the cmos rundown, reformatted and partitioned the drives using recovery (xp was not friendly about letting me format them all first....) got the settings in the bios right, XPSP2 loaded onto C: drive on first try. Wow.
Set Vista up as F: drive ( three partitions on each drive.) Setup did fine, had to retry a couple of driver installations, found I was doing them in the wrong order- and also upped it to SP1.

Now have true dual boot, networking doing fine on either, graphics looking really good.
No weird boot problems.

Yet.

HAD to turn off AUC, that is SO annoying.

Next is a fresh anti virus, sort of wondering if that's OS dependent, I'm assuming so, got CA's stuff from Tiger too; they were giving it with a system purchase, and three licenses for a year.

By the way, MS is giving a free 5 gig of storage online now- don't remember what they're calling it, but may try it out.

Thanks for your help- I had forgotten the first rule, which is (aside from remain calm) KISS. Keep it simple, stupid.
I've tried to document everything as I went in case it all blows up tomorrow, but it's done great all day.

Next up, application software, after a quick couple of Sandra benchmarks.

Whew....

Later
TY

Another blue screen occurred! The reason was:

So, now, I'm downloading and installing SP1 again. This time, I'll keep it. But I know I'm going to get more blue screens.

Mike... if you haven't done it, check NVIDIA's site for the most recent drivers..... sometimes you have to update both the OS and the specific device drivers.

for real...I had to do that, downloaded the latest bios AND drivers for my board from Intel, and nvidia's too. But, the system should run in crippled vga (600x480) even with older drivers, I think. Plus, I've noticed Vista seems to be pretty informative when you reboot, it'll try to get online to find a fix for whatever problem is going on. No guarantees, but it worked ok for me, especially on the video card driver.

Still have no application software on the new one, but that shouldn't be too hard. I hope.... Really, it's just a matter of getting everything else in place and stable first, like anti-virus, network, etc.

One thing that really bugged me, though...I had especially partitioned my drives, the first one to be c,d and e, and that was for XP, then f,g and h for vista- was trying to keep them totally separated. Well, now they are all re-assigned by Vista, I guess- xp is on C, vista is on D, (but it is on the second drive) etc. Not sure how to overcome that one.
Anyway- time for bed.

TY

My head is spinning...I think I'm the howling dog in that PC/MAC commercial.

I need something really simple for the bride because the poor girl is intimidated just checking e-mail. I got a new Dell a couple years ago and for some time now my little sweetie has been playing around with Windows 2000 on my old Hewlitt-Packard. She was getting "comfortable" stumbling around when the H/P gave up the ghost. The screen actually broke away from the keyboard.

My challenge now is to TRY to help her with the Dell which has XP and I'll move on to something else, but what? I'm not a beginner at this, but I'm certainly not in the same class with you guys.

Translation?

Billy-
I'm figuring Vista out, it has some cool features and better security overall, but requires more system resources (go figure, Windows always does that.) It actually would probably be simpler for inexperienced users to get up and running with, has lots of "user friendly" stuff that comes up automatically. After you get used to it, some of that can be turned off if it bugs you. And it has some cool built in stuff. But, XP is solid. The risk is longer term, will new software programs support it. We'll see.

I'll just say this, repeating what Kat's post said...XP will not be sold after June 30th. (I'm sure you'll still be able to find systems with it on them for a while more, you may even get a deal on one that's in store stock) BUT, it WILL be supported through 2014. That'll be plenty long.
If you're looking for a solid operating system that is proven, and you don't want to be forced into getting the latest hardware (as in larger bucks), then find an XP based computer. Make sure it is at least up to "SP2" (service pack 2) and even better SP3.
If you go with Vista, make sure you download SP1 for it.

I'm going to stick by my original position for a couple months, and run a dual boot system- I can use XP for stability if my primary application software acts up under Vista, and I can use Vista for all the "fun" stuff, like games and iTunes etc.

You may also want to get one of the "...for dummies" books, they are usually well written and very helpful. I have no problem admitting I'm one, for sure....

Okay my learned guru's;
it sounds like:
Vista is most complicated.
I should the bride a laptop with XP.
Get the XP service packs (SP2)&(SP3)
(What do the service packs do for me?)
Then we dwell in happines for 5-6 years with XP.

Is that a correct summation

Ooooooooooo! Oooooooooooo! Ooooooooooo!