I admit most of my gripes are from a gaming standpoint, but seeing as tho the pc is as much a gaming platform as anything else, then that's not really an issue is it?

We used to run a lot of lans back in ME/98 days, and had issues with both. There was little to no compatability between the 2, and half the lan we used to spend getting everyone on the same operating system just so we could play half life or quake on a lan. Or so people could share files. Example : If someone was running a listen or a dedicated server then half the people would be able to connect, the other half wouldn't, or just wouldn't even be able to see that the game was up and running.

98 constantly crashed, blue screened, rebooted and corrupted itself, on me and pretty much everyone i know who was running it at the time. It was dogshit, and second rate dogshit at that. ME fixes these issues for us, hence why i stuck with it, hence why i said it was an improvement. And i stuck with it until XP issues were sorted out (although everyone had moved to xp, i stuck with ME for about another year). 2000 was good for networking and whenever we had a lan, we usually got everyone to install that prior as we didn't have issues with the games we played or file sharing when everyone was running it.

As for music programs and vista, i have no personal experience. But I was talking to a friend the other day and he can't get cubase or protools to run on it as well as a lot of VST plugins just refusing to be acknowleged, due to lack of compatibility and driver support. That has influenced my "vista can fuck right off" decision. And i stand by it until they sort it out.

And if i had half a brain spare, i'd give it to you, since you clearly aren't intelligent enough to conduct yourself with a little more respect or dignity towards people you know nothing about, and it might make you wise up a bit.

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Yes i'm from cheshire...Like Cheese and Cats..

This quote taken out of context is my main gripe with a lot of criticism of Vista. Define "they". Microsoft? It's not Microsoft's fault that hardware manufacturers don't provide users with new drivers for a completely new system (remember that the kernel is different in Vista while e.g. 2K and XP are compatible driver-wise, hence compatible drivers were around for years).
Now, you could say that it's Microsoft's fault for not making a system that is 100% backwards compatible but give them a break - they provided software and hardware manufacturers with SDKs and alpha and beta versions of Windows Vista like TWO YEARS before its release. It's not as if no one saw it coming.
Then, "all of the sudden", after release people were stuck with completely bullshit drivers e.g. for GPUs and thus the myth spawned that e.g. Vista is sooo much slower for games than WinXP, while nowadays pretty much the reverse is true (might only be a couple of percent, but still).

Also - every time I read criticisms of Vista they more often than not go along the lines of: "I had Vista installed for a couple of days, went back to XP because it sucked". Or: "I don't have personal experience with Vista BUT my friend/aunt/imaginary pal blah blah blah"

Dudes - I know a lot about the problems of Vista - I used it virtually since day 1 (over two years now) but the truth is that I didn't have a single total system failure with the system so far (which I can't say about early WinXP versions). It's true that Vista has higher requirements BUT if you meet them (and EVERY new computer, even the cheapest one, does) it works like a charm. Most compatibility issues have been sorted out as well - by third parties, mind you, not Microsoft. The system also needs some getting used to if you were stuck with another one for so many years - remember how long WinXP has been around. But well - you live and learn - and for the additional learning required you get a lot of new features and I'm not talking about silly UI stuff but the way things work internally.

To me Vista is a failure in many ways, the confusing editions, the crappy marketing, MS not pushing others to catch up with compatibility enough, heightened system requirements (for the day of release) but it is NOT a bad system from a pure design perspective (unlike e.g. WinME). It really did take the solid basis of WinXP and either rewrote problem areas or improved/added features. It is a good and modern system nowadays while WinXP is slowly but surely approaching the end of its lifecycle and you can't do anything about it, however you want to argue about its awesomeness.
Hold your horses, smeghammer. Mute wasn't that aggressive in his tone (the only ad-hom I can see is mentioning you're insane but providing good expert arguments softening this statement =) and I can clearly see where this is going if he replies to your post in a similar way. Also, intelligence has nothing to do with respect and you should heed your own advice by not writing stuff like that after mentioning that "Mute needs some more brain"... -.-

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War does not determine who is right - only who is left. - Bertrand Russell

Damn, I had a huge and perfectly worded post here before the crash...

Ah well, to sum it up - Apologies if you thought I was being personal, I wasn't. However your POV regarding Windows (all versions) is very wrong! Especially the music part (i explained why; but now i'm just awake and have no motivation).

Cheers/peace!

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Six weeks -by- Third Rail ...Please share...