I played around with vista, but to be honest I am not a big fan of it so far. Its very pretty, but a memory hog.  There are still driver issues and other compatibility issues.  It is more secure, but you can harden XP pro with 3rd party apps that do a good job of competing with vista. If you can afford it, you should get vista just so you can talk about it intelligently with your clients if you are involved in IT. If you have a state of the art box and really into gaming, you will need it to run directX 10. The sad thing for Microsoft is the amount of people that have dumped vista to go back to XP.   

Well, my office was kicking around the idea of switching to Vista.  We have since thrown out the idea, after hearing horror stories of incompatability issues with both hardware/software.  We have a number of divisions that use programs like AutoCAD and ArcGIS and such.  From the research we've done, quite a number of these programs as of yet don't work well (or at all) with Vista.  The added strain on system performance due to Vista's resource hogging, combined with using graphics programs... really sealed the deal of us just throwing out the idea.  We have XP working fine, and hardened... and we saw no compelling reason to force ourselves to immediately upgrade hardware, and give ourselves headaches with trying to work Vista in.  For security, I'd personally go for a Linux box over Vista any day. 

The question of whether Vista is a better OS than XP is a good question.  I won't go so far as to say that Vista is one of the top 10 most terrible techs of the last 20 or so years... but it has been said on Cnet.

http://crave.cnet.co.uk/gadgets/0,39029552,49293700-10,00.htm

I personally consider Windows ME to be a far worse product.  Infact at a recent Microsoft sponsored conference I went to.. the M$ rep went so far as to say ME really stands for "Major Embaressment."  He got points in my book for admitting that, since most everyone considered it to be crap.  Windows 7 should be better (crosses his fingers), at least it has a much smaller kernel footprint.  I'm waiting for that to come out, and hear reviews on it.  For the moment though, I'm using xp on my windows boxes, and Linux for my 'work' box.

Sedated is right, I have been using Vista on one of my laptops for a while now and have had serious compatibility issues. Cisco VPN never worked properly and a number of other programs that I like just don't work. I find that I've had program crashes more than I ever did than XP. I'm guessing that in the service packs they should (hopefully) improve compatibility and stability. Good luck in your purchasing decision!

~icetek

Microsoft is attempting to push vista by claiming it will soon drop support for XP. If that scares a highly security conscience company, they may have no other choice but to go vista.  It used to not  bother me if client machines were running unpatched if the network itself was locked down very tight, but now with client side attacks growing in sophistication, keeping every computer on the network locked down is very important. If an organization doesnt like their security being at the whim of Microsoft, that is when Microsoft needs to make more money,then perhaps its time to look at Linux.

haha.. seems like im not really going with the flow here...  but i have been using vista ultimate for quite a few months now and i dont have any problems with it...

i guess it depends on your system spec.. but iv seen nothing but better performance and a nicer GUI

i wont go as far as recommending ppl to switch to vista.... but i recommend ppl give vista a shot.. (especially since sp1 is now out)

i am yet to come across any driver/incompatibility problems that have hindered my usage of my computer.

if you have a system that passes vista requirements with some room to spare, then you should get it. if you have never used vista and are going just on other peoples comments, you'll hate it. however, vista users say it's very good. give it a try.

Compatibility is my main qualm with Vista.  A business which I work for occasionally has began migrating to Vista.  They did not test all of their software and have found that one of their core applications does not run on Vista...in fact, it won't even install.

Honestly, I like the OS.  It is very user friendly and very nice to look at.  For the average user, Vista is a good choice.