I haven't bothered to read the entirety of this thread, but I personally find Windows Vista to be a load of BS.
If all you're doing is like, Internet, word processing etc, there's absolutely no use in a fuckin' expensive OS that overall just makes everyday computing a whole lot harder. In fact.. there's no use for Vista even if you are doing more than everyday tasks lol.
Ive been using Ubuntu 7.04 (linux) since it came out (earlier this year). fuckin' excellent alternative to windows/mac, and its completely free for download.
i'm sure everyone else that posted has already informed you of all the shit bits about vista, so i won't bother.