I just bought a new laptop and went with a MAC so I wouldn't have to deal with Vista. None of the programs that I use are compatible with Vista and it's easier to use a dual platform on the MAC rather than fight with Vista.

I watched one guy in the training class for the landscape design software class get so frustrated with the compatibility problems with Vista and the software that the instructor finally gave him her laptop to use. It was a learning experience for the software company as well! They found out that they had a lot of work to do on their upgrade! It was NOT working with Vista at all!!!

I use WordPerfect and will not use Word at all. I never have and feel I should not have to change word processing programs just because MS has something new and better!

Change is not always for the better. Customers should be given the option to stay with XP or go with Vista, especially in light of the all the problems it has had since its release!

They just lost one customer....

Yeah! I agree girl; we are at their mercy!

I wondered about a MAC so I will do some research as I don't know anything about a MAC system.

http://www.apple.com/mac/

I got a new laptop with Vista installed already when Vista was brandnew and still a lot of hassle. I had noticed that XP was getting slower and slower on my old pc and was told by a guy that is in the programming business, that Microsoft tends to hide bugs in their updates that slow your pc to a crawl over the 6 months prior to the release of a new operating system. Also, I do not like Microsoft or anyone having the right to have a lot of personal data about me, enter my computer at will, copy things out of there I cannot see and send them somewhere else, which all happens when you start updating, they will only allow you to update after you allow them to install some stuff Genuine Advantage that will force you from then on to allow this sneaking around on your pc. So I installed XP instead of Vista, had it ratified by phone, and now enjoy using XP at incredible speed and staying that way on a laptop that had enough memory built in to accommodate Vista, which eats up at least three times the memory of XP.

I've laptop computers with XP and with Vista. I've not noticed any "slowing" on either computer. My latest runs Vista; it started with 140 GB and is now standing at 68 free. It still runs as fast as when I got it (December '07).

Defrag'ing, cache clearing, etc., might help when a 'puter seems to be running too darn slow.

Most of the probs. I've heard about with Vista are related to installing it on older computers... orginally XP or prior platform-compatible.

Vista isn't perfect, yet, it does perform fairly well as long as older software versions will also work - without upgrading. Some software apps. do have patches available, though.

I guess I would finally concede to my son.... Get a MAC...

That is all I hear! Better system, better security, and they have Mosaic
screen saver. I'd get it just for THAT....it is a cosmic graphic program.

It also appears to be be faster and easier for graphics manipulation --I watched him do photos, and it was far easier than my PC.

So when this Dell dies, I guess I will try a MAC. If you are going to futz around with drivers and incompatibility, why not go UP rather than down?

Also there is always the Free Open Source Linux Operating systems..

my favorite so far is Simply Mephis
http://www.mepis.org/


Linux free Operating systems {OS} info and sites

http://www.linux.org/
http://www.ubuntu.com/

variety of info on all OS -
http://www.computerhope.com/os.htm

I use both Linux and XP on my computer depending on what i am doing...
With dual boot system - You can choose which OS to load at start up. XP or the Linux OS.

It took me awhile to find the Linux OS's that recognized my wireless card without me having to anything.
Dlink - WDA-1320
The above card was recognized right away on my system by Ubuntu, Kubuntu, Simply Mephis, and a few others but these are my favs so far.

About a year ago I bought a new laptop for DDs as I use my computer for work all the time. I bought a MAC book too and we absolutely love it! Unfortunately, the FTP site we use for transcription is not yet compatible with a MAC.

Additionally, I have to use Word and sometimes when you type in word on a MAC and pull the document in a MS environment you get some funky things. There is a program that helps with this but since I don't use it for work I didn't purchase it.

All in all I love the MAC computers (used one when I went back to school and now have our laptop). We have had no problems with it at all.

EDIT: AZJanie Compusa does sell used/refurbished computers that you can get with XP on them. The prices aren't too bad at all.

I don't know whether it's still the same or if things have changed: On my older Power Mac, what I discovered was that upgrades to the O/S and drivers consumed so much space that, eventually, the system performed much more sluggish than has any PC I've owned (and I've had 4 so far, which out-perform the Mac).

The upside with Mac, as someone else mentioned: dual platform and the quality of graphics rendering.

My main computer runs Window XP, and is 18 months old. My concern is Microsoft wants to stop supporting XP in 2009. No support would mean no more software programs = no virus protection.