Well part of the problem is MS releasing the min specs for Vista which were complete bullshit. In fact I think there was a law suit in the US due to the fact companies were selling hardware with Vista ready stickers when they weren't even close to being powerful enough to run Vista. I'm sure if you have reasonable technical ability and a powerful machine you can get Vista running sweetly. But I don't think it's acceptable that you should have to up your RAM from say 500mb with XP to 2/3/4gb for Vista. I'm not a MS basher and I get really bored with people slagging of MS & I was really looking forward to Vista, but I've used it on brand new laptops and is very slow, especially in contrast to XP.