Which Microsoft Operating System? : I’m shopping for a new desktop computer to complement my circa 2006 Dell Latitude D-820. My current desktop is a circa 1998 Gateway Pentium II (450 MHz) operating under MS Windows XP Professional. I’m retired with a home office setup and have decided on the Dell Vostro 420 Tower as my new desktop. I’m currently checking out the many available options on http://configure.us.dell.com. First on the list is which Operating System (OS) to choose. As an XP Pro user I’ve heard negative reports about unresolved bugs in MS Vista Operating System, e.g. that I should wait until Vista is more reliable (less “buggy”). So I’m undecided as to which OS to choose. I do want an OS that’s the equivalent of XP Professional. One of Dell’s OS options for the Vostro 420 reads: - “FREE Genuine Vista Business Bonus w/XP Professional downgrade. Installed $99 value [Included in Price]. FREE $99 UPGRADE.” ??? What does this mean in plain English? When I have my OS decided I can address other Vostro 420 hardware and software options. Many thanks. Shamrock838

As a business recomendation....stick with Windows XP professional " One of Dell’s OS options for the Vostro 420 reads: - “FREE Genuine Vista Business Bonus w/XP Professional downgrade. Installed $99 value [Included in Price]. FREE $99 UPGRADE.” ??? What does this mean in plain English?" basically it is about the Microsoft Small Business Assurance Program http://www.microsoft.com/oem/englis... Fast double talk from Dell... If you buy the Vista computer package with XP Pro downgrade then Dell will install the XP Pro on the machine and offer you the free vista business upgrade (that they just removed to install xp)so that you can still recieve the Bonus Business Pack which is a Microsoft Phone and web site help desk for any issues on the VISTA BUSINESS system only. wheeeewwww! Obama's Spread the Wealth I gave my waitress' tip to a homeless person. She has a better understanding!

I'm a help desk support tech for an engineering company of about 1200 users... We have tested Vista on our engineering applications and some of just will no work with Vista no matter how much we "twiddle" with them... My company has made the decision to NOT go to Vista under any circumstances... I agree with lurkswithin...stay with XP...if you do get Vista I can almost guarentee you a long learning curve and you won;t like it...

"We have tested Vista on our engineering applications and some of just will no work with Vista no matter how much we "twiddle" with them..." What does this really mean? Do you have programs that won't work? Not very specific. I too am retired with a home office and have stepped up to Vista Ultimate. There is no long learning curve as stated above. Anything you can do with XP can be done in Vista and personally I prefer Vista over XP. My recommedation if you are going brand new box is to go Vista SP1. Eerything that was in XP is there in Vista and Vista even looks better. I am not saying that it works any better but why go with a 6 yer old OS when you can use the latest. As far as Vista being "buggy" I have used it for the last year and do not think it is "buggy". I realize this is a personal choice but the support for XP will dry up one year or another so I would go with the latest OS for now. You realize Windows 7 is just around the corner. Maybe you should wait for that OS and be right up to date.

I would stay with XP. As stevenm stated, Vista is incompatible with alot of things. It's slower than XP in every respect. There is a slight learning curve involved too. It's basically a matter of opinion of Vista. Some people obviously enjoy Vista, and that's good, but there are others including me who just haven't had a good experience with it. WinSimple Software

Terii... As an engineering company, we design high voltage electrical transmission lines...you know the big electrical towers that nobody wants in their back yards...:)..electricall substations, wind generation farms, geothermal plants etc... We have about 3 dozen highly specialized programs that design various things in our industry...Among these are Autocad, Bently Microstation... Autocad works fine on Vista but performs fairly significantly slower than on the same computer with XP...that is C2D, 2.0Ghz and 4 Gb RAM...and we are now testing the new quad core chips...we stay fairly high up on the hardware... Bently Microstation, on the other hand works pretty good but some of the features in Microstatioin will not work very well... PLSCADD, a program that designs the electrical line towers simply will NOT run on Vista, no matter what we do... Vibrec, a program that calculates wind loads on high voltage lines, the vibration that various wind loads creates under hot sun or ice condition etc gives misleading answers... We use a laser large printer...prints 50" wide...no drivers available for Vista... So...yes, there are good things about Vista...and some things not so good... And I realize that our requirements are not "normal"...but we have done a quite a bit of testing on Vista and we have found it to be less than desirable... Yes, given a bit of time you learn how to use it...and sometimes thangs that should work in Vista, joining a domain for example stop working...this happened several times in our tests and we had to rebuild it to fix it...have no idea why it stopped working... Now, maybe in a normal home environment Vista is much better...and I realize that my example probably is not a good example for the question at hand... We are waiting for Windows 7...