I'm used to Vista Ultimate 64bit (i wanted the full package with every option and gadget available for Vista, no lower cut version anymore) now and even i have a 32bit Windows XP running on another partition, i just never go back to XP and use it - just  for some special checks, but happens rarely. To me Vista runs smoother, reacts better to program crashes and lots more i like with Vista, now that since it's release many official (automatic) updates made it to a good OS in my eyes.

Sure - your system has to be in par with this OS - meaning if you got just a medium system, you might have more trouble.

I run it on a Quad Q6600 CPU, a fast 8800 GTS graphics card, 4GB Ram and lots of harddisk space. This probably makes a difference and i wouldn't really want to run it on a lower machine. Running the build in Vista benchmark under Computer details, my system calculates a 5.6 benchmark index, the highest reachable for now shows as 6.0 !  So i'm close to the highest preset benchmark value with my system - so i guess that's a sign, too, that things run smooth in my Vista OS most of times. Doesn't matter if it's graphics, video cut and calculation, music applications, the most recent games ...

And if Vue really crashes, i never have (had) to reboot my system in Vista (by hand or automatic) to right now - just call the task manager and cancel the process ...