I had Vista preinstalled on a new laptop I bought and wanted to give it a chance because all of my other PC's have XP on them. I'll admit, I really like the graphical enhancements but there were several reasons it had to come off. 

First, was the inordinately long startup and shut down times - this is unbelievable when you consider that XP was touted by MS as having the quickest startup time - why the severe downshift with Vista?

Second, as somebody already mentioned, the number of processes running in the background! I mean, who's using this 'puter anyway - me or Microsoft?! Vista sure can make a fast new 'puter seem to be running very slowly. :)

Last and most serious was the incompatibility issues with so many software products. It was really hit or miss with each app. Some would install, some wouldn't or some would install but not work properly. If you know exactly what you want to be doing with your computer - who needs this hassle? 

So it's going to be XP SP2 for me until the next version of Windows comes out :)

• Rick