I'm definitely upgrading from XP to Vista because ...
Vista was designed wth security in mind whereas with XP it is a bolt on add-on, yes UAC is a pain but that can be turned off if you are an advanced enough user and know not to click on the pop-ups etc.
Do your research properly with your existing hardware and Vista will be rock solid stable, it has been for me. If you don't do your research and then upgrade and then have problems then why not come onto the register and complain about microsofts (cough your own) incompetance instead.
Desktop search and indexing, this is great, a few minutes after installing vista i needed to find a specific file out of 100GB worth on my second hard disk. I started typing the name in and BANG there it was before I had finished typing.
The new start menu, nice and neat. I have alot of programs installed and hated it when the start menu spread out over my screen and if i misclicked I had to start again, no such problems in vista.
Faster launching of programs with prefetch loading commonly used programs into memory ready for use. I have office 2007, and word for example is ready to go in less than a second.
Vista starts up and shuts down much quicker than XP, about 20 seconds to start on my computer compared to 50 seconds when I had XP.
Built in CD and DVD burning software and with a free add on available over the net I can burn ISOs with no extra software needed. No more nero for me.
Built in parental controls if you have a family, full control over what the little ones can and cannot do.
A much neater interface than XP, no longer looking as some people have said like a fisher price OS, it looks much more proffesional.
Advanced system info including reliability monitor allowing you to see when software caused a problem and in a number of cases actually useful information coming back as feedback suggesting you download a patch or an updated version.
Bitlocker drive encryption with the ultimate version and appropriate hardware.
Flashy interface, well thats an individual thing, I turned it off, no transparent windows or flashy animations when minimising for me.
Also remember, if you are building a new computer or even if you just buy a qualifying piece of hardware you can get the OEM version much cheaper than the full retail version.
Oh and lastly, to those who say it is memory hungry, its true! it is, but considering the price of memory, who cares, £15 per GB for quality named memory!!! I bought 16MB for £400 in 1995 when i upgraded to Win95. I now have 4GB on Vista 64 and it runs like a dream.
Use some common sense, know what you are doing and Vista will be fine.
Biting the hand that feeds IT
