If it is to browse the Web, use Email and send and receive documents created with Office, Vista will serve you well and is significantly more secure.
If you plan on using older software that isn’t easy to update/replace then you’ll need to think hard. Numerous older programs written for 98/XP do not work correctly on Vista.
If you plan on playing real time high performance 3D games, Vista is slower than XP.
Vista has a nicer look. Has new tools/features and is more secure but has serious compatibility issues.
Try running huge Photoshop files on this hog OS.
2Gs of RAM ain’t squat.
I have to do my really complex stuff on an old Dell desktop with 4Gs if I want to get anywhere without crashing, big time.
Hubby [insanely] upgraded his Dell to Vista and has no problems at all.
Of course, he’s just surfing eBay, biker tech sites and answering business emails.
*I’m* the one who has to fight Vista to the death just to keep our website running.
Right now, I’m barely able to type because I’m transferring all of my MP3s to the aforementioned desktop to redo my iPods.
I don’t *dare* try to manage a 5000 song iTune folder on this bug-infested machine.
I WILL kill Vista soon.....no matter what I have to do to accomplish it.
[not to mention the unavoidable infestation of “IE 7”. if I *wanted* “tabbed browsing”, I’d use Firefox]