HP is haivng a lot of troubles lately with drivers, so I am not suprised.  Again, BSOD's are not as destructive or damaging to the Vista system as they were in NT or XP.  As for Word you should be able to recover you work and the problem may not be is MS but the hardware or Hp drivers.  I also have Word and Vist 64 on a system I built for Vista, and I do not have the problems you speak of. 

Vista or MAC is the only option for the future, and 3D software will function and run better than XP, which will not be able to keep up in the near future.  The choice is up to the user to do their homework and find out as much as they can about the system they will purchase and the software they want to run.   The more informed the better the choice you can make. 

e-On is making every effort to create the next generation 3D software, and the user will need a machine that can support all of those improvements, should you want keep up with the big boys.
 

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