I'd definitely pick XP over Vista. Vista wasn't ready for prime time, and it still isn't.

From everywhere I hear, Vista on laptops is lumbering and awful. I was actually quite surprised that I've had so little trouble with it on my desktop machine, which came installed from scratch, rather than be reinstalled from XP/NT.

This page uses satire to make the point: [link]

Review: Windows XP

I have finally decided to take the plunge. Last night I upgraded my Vista desktop machine to Windows XP, and this afternoon I will be doing the same to my laptop.

Look & Feel

Windows XP has quite a cartoony look and feel compared to the slick look of Aero Glass; this is mostly offset by the lack of strange screen artifacts caused by malfunctioning graphics code. You know, almost like static on the screen.

Performance

Well, here there appears to be no contest. Windows XP is both faster and far more responsive. I no longer have the obligatory 1-minute system lock that happens whenever I log onto Vista, instead I can run applications as soon as I can click their icons. Not only that, but the applications start snappily too, rather than all waiting in some "I'm still starting up the OS" queue for 30 seconds or so before all starting at once. In addition, I have noticed that when performing complex tasks such as viewing large images, or updating large spreadsheets, instead of the whole operating system locking down for several seconds, it now just locks down the application I am working on, allowing me to [gasp] Alt-Tab to another application and work on that. I am thrilled that Microsoft decided to add preemptive multitasking to their operating system, and for this reason alone I would strongly urge you to upgrade to XP. With the amount of multi-core processors around today using a multitasking operating system like XP makes a world of difference...

Read the whole thing - funny and real information.

Kathy,

couple of things:

1) Dell has a really good refurb area where you can buy new computers, or scratch and dent or refurb with nice warranties at better prices often than new computers. This is an FYI. My current laptop I got from such an area and this laptop was brand new, never booted up and it is a much better computer (more RAM, more features) than I could have afforded to buy from the brand new area.

2) I have mixed feelings about recommending which direction you should go: vista or xp. I don't regret getting vista on this laptop, but one of the things I weighed was how long I typically keep laptops. I use the laptop an awful lot. It gets more wear and tear than my car does if I consider how many hours a day I'm on it and the kinds of things I want it to do. So I typically am ready for a new laptop after about 2 years, 3 years at the most. So I think vista was a good choice to take me into that future period of time.

When it comes down to it, there are two things that bother me about Vista vs. XP. Everything else is liveable and/or a perhaps improvement over XP.

1) Office 2007 files don't play nice with previous Office so I have to save everything as 03 files so I can share the files.

2) I had this horrible memory problem that was a function of Vista's auto backup. The backup ate up nearly all the space on my hard disk and I had to run several searches on google to figure out what the problem was.

I must admit, I don't see real performance problems between Vista and XP. My XP laptop was not lightning fast, so I think my current laptop is much faster than my XP one.

Probably because your current laptop has much better hardware. I mean the only reasonable speed comparison between varying OS systems is the same hardware.

Oh I think you are right. It also has a lot more RAM.

I have Vista and haven't had a problem with it so far, but I'm hardly putting the laptop through its paces.

My feeling on this is: sure Vista has to work for somebody. I guess it is a matter of how lucky you feel.

With Vista there is a whole lot more that can go wrong than with XP. And for this risk you getter slower performance than you would with same hardware on XP. And while I can think of a few things it does better than XP I can't think of any major things it does better.

I just installed OpenOffice on my MacBook, and I cannot for the life of me figure out how to delete notes from a document I was working on in Word. Any suggestions?

I've been a fan of OpenOffice, but hadn't really used it much for my collaborative work on my old computer. So far, I'm finding that I don't like the collaborative tools as well in OpenOffice, but I'm not sure if it's because it's not as good for that or that I just haven't set it up properly. Any ideas?

Thanks much for any help!