Billye,

If you are going with Windows, I would STRONGLY recommend Vista, unless you have a piece of hardware or software that is incompatible. It is extremely easy to check whether that is the case or not. Just go to this link and download the program:

Windows Vista Upgrade Advisor

I would be surprised if you have a piece of hardware that is not compatible, but if you do, this program will tell you all about it. And almost all of the major software vendors have made their releases work fine with Vista, but again the program will let you know if there is a problem.

If you have no upgrade issues, then Vista is clearly the way to go. You can read my post in this thread to get the specifics:

Vista

As for ordering XP now and then upgrading to Vista, there is one very bad problem with that. When upgrading a Windows OS (operating system), you should always perform a clean installation rather than what is called an upgrade in place. In short, this means that just sticking any OS onto an existing one is a very bad idea and guaranteed to cause problems sooner or later. You need to wipe the partition clean and freshly install the OS. This means that you will have to reinstall all of your programs and settings all over again - it can be and usually is a HUGE job.

rafi