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I'm going to have to get a new computer before long and I have a decision to make. I can either go with Vista or XP. I have used XP now for around four years or so and I would prefer not to change, but I'm afraid I might have to regardless in a year or so. I am not a computer or technology wiz and have only used Vista a few times now and I didn't like it. I also heard you have to keep updating the darn thing every time you turn on the PC. Now, the only reason why I'm considering to get Vista is I have seen that if someone tries to send me an attachment and they are using the latest MS software, it will not work on my XP powered computer. I have heard a rumor that things I have saved like my word documents will not work on Vista's new programs. If someone could clear that up, I would appreciate it.

My question is do I wait until I absolutely have to change or bite the bullet and take it?

Wait for now Vista has too many problems with it and not alot of driver support. I think it might be 2 years before you have to more over.

I would stick with what works. Or you could play around with a computer in the store that has Vista installed. As long as it doesnt have office 08; I hate new office 2008[:@][:'(]. It seemed too Apple inspired to me. Almost counter intuitive.

RLSH700, Jeremiah's right on this one. We're looking at '09 before we even start considering a deployment in my company.

There's no real value in Vista. In fact there was a blog on ZDnet about it becoming the next Millenium edition (if anyone remembers that). I ordered it on a Dell E521 earlier this year, dual booted between it in Ubuntu for a while, then just stopped. Not impressed. Just glitz/glam and no real payoff. Not really much safer than XP even though it does do a good job of making sure you really want to do things (it's (windows) is trying to become a real OS). I just ordered a Vostro 1000 notebook for the Mrs. $399 SHIPPED w/ dual core AMD, 1GB Mem, 120 GB HD, DVD DL writer. I was waiting for the Medison (thought it was a scam looking more to be) or the Asus (but those jokers jacked the price to the price of a real notebook) .

Had an option of XP or Vista at oder this time (so many people had railed against OEM's that Vista sucked that OEM's started offering the option) ....this time picked XP. If you want desktop search and don't like Google Desktop, give Windows Desktop Search a spin (as much as I hate to admit it, it's pretty good).

M$FT better have something a little more substantial than a way scaled back offering of their next BIG OS offering, or the Lemmings might wake up.

IF YOU MUST use Windoze. Go with XP for now.

JoeyR, have you considered OpenOffice?

Oh yeah and that reminds me on few more tips if you're going to use Windoze.

1. Never buy Office or any office suite (unless you're some hopped up VBA jockey or have macro's out the wazoo in Excel)
2. Never buy ANTI-Virus www.grisoft.com (look for the free version, if you can't find it ping me)
3. NEVER use I.E. (they may have gotten better with their propensity to get all malwared up, but I've had re-image more than a few friends boxes due to this crap) go with FIREFOX. It am much better.
4. ALWAY install Ad-Aware (just in case someone else may consider using IE on your machine)
5. Consider virtualization if you're going to be doing tons O' browsing and to potentially unsafe places.
6. Remember to Defrag your disk from time to time.

I WOULD STRONGLY recommend people investigate Ubuntu. It'll do most of what you want out of the box, and it'll let you try before you commit installs by allowing you run it live (off the CD loaded into memory).

Good luck

DS, I just built a computer awhile back with older parts that I replaced when upgrading my MS computer for gaming and I am using Ubuntu. I am still learning the Linux world. I bought a book called Windows to Linux. So far a good read. Also bought the pocket guide that has all the commands. I am also on a Linux forum that is really nice. I went to a few, but this one excepts newbies, where the other forums seemed to be mean to newbies. I am thinking once I get use to this, I will give in and get Playstation 3 for my gaming habits and Linux for my computer needs.

I have used Unix before and Redhat for work, too long ago though to remember.

I tried Xantros, it was a little more frustrating for nb's.

But to RLSH, I would stick with XP. One reason for me, is last I heard Vista doesn't support SLP for video cards among other things. Man my company is in the dark ages, We are still using 2000. They aren't replacing to XP, but if you get a new computer then they leave it with XP now that 2000 is not supported.

The university i attend uses office 2008, I dont care much for it; or most of the staff I havent tried open office yet, but we do have pro office.

JoeyR, give it (openoffice) a whirl; it's free and feels just like OfficeXP/2k.

The next time you purchase a PC be sure not to let them nickel and dime you to death. I always want to spec folks machines out for them, 'cause I'll send them a honey of a deal w/ explicit instructions "DO NOT LET THEM SELL YOU ANYTHING ADDITIONAL" and invariable about 2/3 of the time they get upsold. It's like the time share solicitations, it only makes sense if you can say no. With that said, a fews years back I went to a St. Martens and ended up w/ a ridiculously expensive "free boat ride" to the Island of saba. The upside, is I actually made out pretty darned good, but it was by pure chance. I didn't want to buy, didn't want to buy, they kept giving me more points until finally they broke me down. Man was I undisciplined. Got back did research on line (that's why I didn't want to buy right there) turns out I got a bunch of points for a reasonable rate. Now, it's just a matter of actually using them at least every two years. Keeps me honest and forces me to take some fun vacations. Easy to neglect these types of things.

Techman, yeah I was considering the Cellular chipset of PS3 as part of a different computing platform. I bought an XBOX a couple years ago with the explicit purpose of making it my MythTV (Free Dvr, OK really expensive in the end Free DVR), Bought MechWarrior to the software hack to boot linux on it. Never got around to it.

The nice thing about the PS3 is Sony was actually going to allow disks to be sold to boot for appliance like purposes (Video Editing, Audio Editing, Desktop Publishing, etc) so the nice thing is you have a very extensible platform that can really, if not do it all, do a damn good bit of it.

I'm sorry you fell into a pit of jackasses with the Linux forum (trust me there are bunch of us who really want to help nb's out, anyone with a conscience will remember when they were being introduced to the environment). They don't get the groove. I've been working with Linux since I installed Slackware 1.something in 95...I wanted to be a unix SA when I grew up....funny had a chance to be Redhat SA, friends with leads that whole deal, but I kind of got looped into my current gig Managing Support for windows, so my chance passed me by.

As far as your company being in the stone ages, don't sweat it dude. The only real enhancements I really saw with the XP upgrade we went through a couple years back was RDP, Remote Assistance, and Restore As of (which only works some of the time, we use Rollback 3rd party app to get more robust system state restore). We were using VNC before that and being that it integrates into AD now we could have realistically stayed on 2K. With that said, hopefully I can put together a strong enough case to avoid an unnecessary upgrade to Vista and actually get to skip a release.

I agree with you RLSH, probably better to hang w/ XP. You can get all the extry's via enhancements.

That's OK though, I'm a recent convert from Fedora Core 5 was my last to Ubuntu. Very user friendly. If you ever have questions about Linux or linux command, please by all means, hit me up. If I can't figure it out, I can probably find out where it is.

So far all votes are for XP and none are for Vista. I appreciate the insight. I'm going to go ahead and get XP. My brother was recommending the same thing and I wanted a second option. If I was more into computers, I woiuld look into one of the other operating systems, but I think it would be best for me to stay with what I know. Thanks again.

Thanks DS, if I need help I will hit you up. Here is the linux site I goto that is pretty good.

http://www.linuxforums.org/

I was thinking the PS3 would be good to get as it also has the Blu Ray on it. 2 birds with 1 stone so to speak. And just a Blu Ray machine by itself is about the same cost if not more.

I'm using XP right now but most of fellow troops have Vista on their laptops, they all have recommended to me that if I were to go with Vista then get anything over 1GB to handle at a decent speed. I've played around with Vista and to me it seems ok. I didn't like XP at all when it came out but I got use to it.

As far as importing MS files and other files of that sort, its ok. I'm using MS Office 2003 on my laptop and send reports/documents to MS Office 2007+ and nobody has any trouble reading them.

Good luck!
-Mike