As for 'having' to upgrade to Vista....why? So M$ refuses to 'support' XP after 2010 (they posture....but they said the same about 98, NT4, Win2k, etc...and the user base was still large enough to force them to extend); You find yourself with a stable system, it's insane to allow upgrades that could undo it. I still use 98SE and Win2K and could care less about 'support' (which isn't all that grand to begin with). Vista's DRM scheme is intrusive, draconian, and already rendered worthless (do a websearch on Muslix64; this kidlet has -already- cracked both blu-ray and HD-DVD encryption schemes). It interferes with programs doing their jobs.It doesn't matter what M$ wants; we are the consumers, and a simple refusal to blindly sheeple along with their plans is all we have to do to get the message across.