I plan on getting a new laptop soon but had some questions about Vista. I've heard that Microsoft keeps track of everything you do with the Vista os and your computer sends the information back to Microsoft. First of all, is there a way to disable this function? Will running the dual boot thing take care of this, or can they still see every file you open? If not, would I have to buy a new version of XP or do they offer a free program to downgrade from Vista? And finally, if XP were installed, does it have the ability to use a dual core processor? Thanks for the advice.

it is literally impossible to 'silence' a microsoft operating system unless you pull the plug :) to pacify your paranoia, get Linux ... there is a great variety of free distros to choose from. and yes, Windows XP supports multicore CPUs