I have played with Vista for some time now, and it is a rather substantial facelift over XP. On the tech side, the networking stack has been completely rewritten, and as such is the source of MANY performance headaches - particulaly when it comes to large file transfers over networks, and then most significantly on 1GB networks. Other network problems arise when Vista is copying to XP or Server 2K3 shares - sometimes impossibly slow performance. Add to that Vista's penchant for arbitrarily losing network gateway info, or not coming out of hibernation cleanly, or generally screwing up on your local network, and you have a perplexing problem...

It gets worse. Vista's much-heralded SP1 actually broke some USB-based devices, further extending Vista's poor perception within the IT industry. I know one large company here in town that has put off Vista deployment for at least another year.

On a given piece of hardware, assuming you can find Vista drivers, Vista will run somewhat slower than XP. The degree of that difference depends on the kinds of applications you run - some organization say the performance difference is immense, others say it isn't.

My recommendation? If you have a working, stable XP-based system, and have applications you are happy with, there is no compelling reason to go out and shell out the bucks for a Vista upgrade. If you could get by on 512MB for XP, you'll probably need 1GB for Vista.

Vista's reinvention of various aspects of the user interface range from the annoying to the downright infuriating. User Access Control, wherein Vista dims the screen and asks your permission to do just about everything, is one of the first security annoyances you'll turn off. As mmonroe pointed out, the simple task of making a network connection is now a Herculean effort in Vista, couched in icon-animaed generalities that some hybrid video game enthusiast/ease-of-use "expert" convinced the Microsoftians was "better," which it is not.

Is Vista bad? No. Is it compelling? Absolutely not. Where XP offered the refinement of the 32-bit engine fostered in NT, or NT brought true multitasking over the abortion in the single-threaded 16-bit Original Windows world, Vista offers no such revolutionary changes to the base system. The glass interface is cool for about five minutes, and the rolodex of windows is fun exactly twice, then you never run it again. You do get the fun of hoping your various software or hardware manufacturers have released driver and performance upgrades to keep up with the latest Vista "quirks."

Some have said this is merely another link in the evolutionary changes in Windows, that all previous versions have had the same or similar driver and application issues - that may be true, but as noted before, there were compelling reasons to uprade. That element is missing this time around.

I bought a brand new Dell XPS 1530 with Vista preinstalled - and after a week, I repartitioned the drive and installed XP in a dual-boot configuration on it with no problem whatsoever. And I'm tickled to death I did. I can play with it when I have the time, inclination, or patience. If I want to get work done, I boot into XP.

If you've got the time and inclination, go for it and give Vista a shot. If you're worried about missing something great, rest easy. You're not.