I work at a helpdesk and support Vista.

First of all, SP1 has made improvements. Even before that, I couldn't honestly say it was horrid in the sense that, say, supporting WinMe has been. It's now, at least usably stable, and systems are now pretty much up to it's *actual* system requirements, as opposed to the fantasies of PC's that would supposedly run XP and were sold with it before, but couldn't possibly run *well*.

That said -

A) I have seen nothing to *recommend* Vista. It is prettier than XP, but it's not as if XP was just too ugly to look at. It has somewhat better security than XP, but the method of the enforcement is such that all to often people get used to bypassing that very enforcement. Although some people have a higher opinion of the Vista improvements that are there than I do, there's nothing that has struck me with that "How the hell did I live without this?" feeling that you get with a leap forward - I was interested in the new filesystem, but that died early.

Everything else is incremental improvements, and my personal opinion is the trade offs speed and the loss of other capabilities I *did* want outstripped these minor improvements.

Until relatively recently, every version of Vista I've seen acquired with a system is 32 bit Vista. 64 bit Vista does not yet seem (on the systems I've seen it on) ready for prime time on driver support. 

You have the option of driving your car with either half it's spark plugs connected, or half of it's tires attached. The good news is you get to pick which - Grin.

C) I have a copy of XP professional, I have [url="http://www.nliteos.com/"]nLite[/url] to let me rip out the portions that slow it down and make my own CD images. It's faster and it runs everything that Vista runs, on older hardware - and for me, since I really only use XP for gaming, it's worth doing.

D) for actual *use*, I consider Ubuntu superior to Vista or XP either one. I was *shocked* at the fact that 64bit Ubuntu has better driver support than either 64bit or 32 bit Vista . . . but frankly it does. Unlike Vista, Debians apt-get (Or, for wimps like myself, the synaptic GUI) actually *does* give me a "How the hell did I live without this"? reaction (Imagine 'Impulse', running quietly in the background, updating *everything* to an up to the minute, latest version.), and Ubuntu isn't nearly as psychotic about trying to enforce the "Free Software" paradigm that some people love - you have to install a little extra to enable mp3's and avi files and such - but it's basically a matter of "Are you psycho about running only 'Free as in speech' software? No? Click here." and apt-get takes care of the rest.

As Linux users go, I'm a wimp, and I highly recommend it.

Lemme put it this way - My Mom uses 64bit Ubuntu on her system. She asked me the other day if there's any good reason to keep the Vista partition I left on her system in case she just hated Linux.

Jonnan

I've been using Vista x64 for a year now.  I got it on a new laptop, so I have up-to-date (i.e. beefy) hardware and all the drivers included.  That might explain my amazing success, but I, too, have had absolutely zero compatibility issues, hardware or software.  Admittedly I don't have much hardware to speak of, but pretty much anything new is supported.

Software-wise, pretty much everything works for me as well.  I've played Halo 2, Bioshock, UT3, Gears of War, and they all run smoothly.  I've heard people say XP is anywhere from 5% to wildly-high-percent faster, but I haven't tested it.  And frankly, I don't care. 

Regarding some of the other posts...

-- I have SP1 and didn't really notice any improvements..maybe that's just me.  They tell it it made things better, but honestly I couldn't tell you what.  I had no nagging complaints that it fixed..

-- There are some speed issues when copying files, especially to initiate the copy window.  Other than that, I have no experiences with missing functionality or slowness, or lack of usability.  If anything, I find myself wishing my work computer was Vista instead of XP.  Little details like the new popup calendar, the search box in the start menu, the in-place start menu rather than the ginormously-expanding XP version..  All of these are just..nicer.  Also the translucent Aero theme is much nicer than XP, in my opinion.  XPs theme looked childish and gaudy, causing me to revert to the classic windows look, whereas Vista is much more subtle.

-- Regarding the UAC (the security popup fiasco..), I have left it on its default settings.  I have to authenticate as an admin maybe..once a week?  In my experience, it really isn't that big of a deal.  It is required for installing software, modifying certain system configurations, deleting files that aren't owned by you, etc.  It's actually rather comforting to have it verify my intentions.

-- I haven't noticed any problems with x64.  It's true that a lot of processes run in 32-bit mode, even some of Vista's own services and Microsoft's software.  It's also hard to find native x64 software.  That said, the fact that I can run all my x86 software flawlessly, utilize all my memory, and take advantage of 64 bits in OS code and a few pieces of software (I have a x64 build of Firefox) is worth it.  I can't see myself ever going back to 32-bit Windows.

-- I've heard Vista described as a new operating system that looks like XP.  When people look at Vista and say, "meh, it's Vista with some new eye-candy," they are overlooking the fact that Microsoft rewrote pretty much everything.  Now, if most of this is irrelevant to the end-user, you could argue that it doesn't matter.  Maybe so. 

If you are buying a new computer which isn't last-year's (or 4 years ago) model, there isn't really an excuse to buy XP over Vista.  It's just the OS..it runs your software.

My laptop as Vista 32 bits installed.

My laptop is 2.5 Core2duo with 4 gig ram.

I've never had a pc this fast. It's hard getting use to vista but I am getting there. I am no tech geek but as an ordinary gamer, my laptop plays better then my 2g amd 2 gig ram with a 256 gforce in it.

It's like anything given enough time you get use to it.