Hello everyone! :-D I just ordered my free WinVista from my laptop's manufacturer... But, once it gets here, should I install it? Will all my programs work on it? I use these apps: * Adobe Premiere Pro 2.0 * Adobe Photoshop 9.0 CS2 * Microsoft Visual Studio 2005 * Mozilla Firefox 2.0 * Mozilla Thunderbird 1.5 * OpenOffice.org 2.0 * WinZip 11 and WinRAR 3.61 (duh!) * Some games * Some other apps Like, does it have an XP compatibility mode? If not, do I have to wait for all those programs to become compatible? Thanks! ;-) -- Leo

The decision is yours and yours alone to made. If I were you I would first run Windows Vista Upgrade Advisor to get the idea of which application(s) and hardware may not run well with Vista. Before you run the Upgrade Advisor, be sure to plug in any USB devices or other devices such as printers, external hard drives, or scanners that are regularly used with the PC you're evaluating. There is One thing you should keep in mind: Your Vista will not be in a sense a true Vista. It will be just an upgrade over XP - which is not the same thing as pre-installed Vista OEM PCs to be available for purchase beginning January 30. i_XpUser

I highly recommend you check the Tom's Hardware article posted by Cobra_R (check the post just above your's titled "Vista vs. XP benchmark breakdown"). It has a list of software that works & some insight on what doesn't. Also, if you look at the benchtest comparisons & read the "conclusions", I think you'll find that Vista is generally slower than XP in most applications, & in some tests, you might say it's performance is downright pathetic. But it is sure is pretty...lol

EDIT: But it sure is pretty...lol As Ron Simmons would say, DAMN! DAMN!

I agree with jam. I was dissapointed with Vista. There wasn't a big improvement over the final version and RC2 in preformance areas. Even the final version still lags in a lot of areas in preformance when running certain apps. I was doing benchmarks on my own pc a month back and I found out that the programs I was benchmarking that are Vista compatible ran better if not much better at times on XP then they did on Vista. My system isn't slow by any means, so that wasn't the reason why things ran slower in Vista. It is the fact that Vista has more bloatware on it then any other Windows OS before it. It's dissapointing that an OS that has been in development for 5 years, ends up being more slower then it's counterpart in a lot of areas. If I was you, I would stick to windows xp as long as you have to, because as of now it is clearly better in preformance overall then Vista is. AMD Athlon 64 X2 4600+ OC 2.7ghz 2GB Dual Channel DDR 3200 Nvidia 7900GT SATA II 2x 300gig 7200rpm 16mb cache RAID-0+1 Gigabyte Nforce 4 SLI

lol rod simmons.... classic undertaker won royal rumble :D

yeah, and it looks like he wants to take on Cena at WM23. Can he go 14-0?