03/09/08: I have to thank Microsoft Vista for moving to Ubuntu Linux. That in itself may be worth the price. We purchased a new laptop with Vista pre-installed.
Some people complain about Vista being slow, but we didn't have that problem. Our problem was that, other then looking nice, Vista was in our way no matter what we tried to do: install and run programs, print, constantly downloading patches, hard drive spinning all the time – optimizing? ..making sure our software was legal? ..well, who knows and who cares. We've reformatted the hard drive and installed Ubuntu.
For applications that still only run on Windows, we user VirtualBox to run WindowsXP inside Ubuntu. It works great.
If you're about to purchase a new computer and Vista is the only OS offered, I'd suggest taking a serious look at the new Apple computers, or Linux if you're computer savvy.
11/01/08: I think it says a lot the Microsoft not only still fully supports XP, but offers an "XP Downgrade" for free with new Vista systems.
As an IT Professional I have to say that Vista is horrible in a business environment. I have a number of small business clients that run MS Small Business Server 2003. Vista is incompatible with some of the features of it, ie, offline files.
I still use XP, and will until a suitable MS replacement is released. Fingers crossed for 7.0. Vista may be known as the next Milleneium edition in the near future.
