I have a lot of gripes with Vista, but overall, it's the first OS I've come across that is more restrictive than its predecessor, i.e., it allows fewer options and freedoms and licensing terms than any previous MS OS. On top of that, as the author (Justin Fielding) noted, XP does everything you need, and runs every program that Vista does. And yes, after five years of development, Microsoft should be embarrassed. The only way I recommend it is if you're going 64-bit and you're running it on a big new machine with the baddest videocard you can afford. Otherwise, XP is very fine, and refined!