You will have to endure a bit of relearning on Vista as opposed to XP. In a effort to make the OS very user friendly, they P'O'd a few geeks who like to tinker and these geeks, IMO, did not spend the time needed to realize that they can tinker, but the way to access the OS was different.
You will like the way it keeps track and organizes music without your input. The new windows mail is also improved and very secure.
One thing that some find aggravating is the new security features. many complained about un-secure MS OS's, and now they complain because they are so secure it aggravates them. You can turn this stuff off, which I did at first, but then I turned it all back on, realizing that it was a big, huge security improvement, especially for those that stay connected all the time.
Keep my screen name handy and FR mail me if you have any questions. Perhaps I can help you make the same user adjustments that I have made, and save you some grief in the end. The OS is really different, as you will discover, and there are some things that may not be there that you were used to on XP, but they are there, just not evident. (like the run command)