Unfortunatley at some point in time you will not have a choice. All support for 98 & NT4 has stopped, and Win2K is right there as well - WinXP will follow suit as well.

I have installed Vista RC1 on my machine - I think it runs nicely, and actually found all of my hardware - of course I have an image of my XP install waiting on my partition should it fail or stop working - but it does have quite a few improvement over XP.

When I really start using it more I will know, but as a prelim I can tell you that things are different, and it can leave you lost where to find this, where to find that, but its nice. I think if it can offer the stability, speed, reliability and power that has been proclaimed it will be great.

I really don't judge RC's or beta's too much - mainly because there is so much that can change on the final release - for good and bad - so that will be the final test - but this RC1 is preety good, snappy, stable so far (and actually I have found a much stronger wireless connection over XP).

I agree with your point - changing how things are done can confuse users - even techies! However, and I am by no means a MS advocate, I think MS has been "stoned to death" on how their OS operates and the holes that is imminent in every OS that they have produced, and probably this has been an effort to add the type of security that is needed.

I am not sure if it will work as they expected, but I guess time will tell. Last night I was fiddling around - and I can tell you it is not as straight forward as all of their OS's has been - just to get to nthe TCP/IP settings had me guessing - it is not difficult - but does require you to learn a new procedure to get their.

Many of the features are based towards the consumer - many help routines and diagonstics - which can be a pain for the experienced or techie user.

I have read on many forums that MAC users beleive that Windows is very difficult to use - I use them all - MAC, Windows, UNIX & Linux, and I think each OS has their own perks are downfalls, and you have to approach each OS differently - don't expect each OS to work like the other and you have to set your mind frame towards that.

Similarly the differences between XP & Vista is or can be great - and will require new procedures and techniques - but that is part of growth - without it there will be no advancement. Of course that said, I am sure that most people will like to access things the same way all of the time - especially techies - they know what they want and where to find it - this OS is going to change things quite a bit.

I guess we will have to wait and see their final release to see what changes have been made and how best the OS can be tailored to suit the needs of everyone - MS has a major problem, which happens to be their success - their user base - it is so large that it is impossible to meet the needs of everyone.

I'm going to obtain vista when it is released. Then I will consider buying it if it works. I ain't forking over $$$ until I'm sure that it runs the exact way I want it, and does it's job correctly.