Dell and Vista.....

[KingPoker]

Im looking to get a lovely fast PC with a couple of screens in a few months for multi-table utopia from dell (more than likely) but i had a muck around on there the other day picking and choosing but one thing concerns me. They only seem to offer vista instead of xp now.
There was a thread on vista a month or two back with people saying they wont be getting it for at least a year til possible teething problems are smoothed out and my 2 question are simply
1) Do you think it is still too early to commit to Vista?

  and

2) Do Dell still offer XP?

Oh go on i will chuck another one in then

3) Is Dell the best place to go?

[happybhoy]

1. Definately, I spent 2 weeks trying to force the installer on a program I wrote to work on Vista, I'd imagine that a lot of others be having the same problems, particularly when most programs are constructed from thrid-party components which will need to be fixed themselves. Try googling 'vista problems'. There's a whole host of other reasons why I'm sticking with XP, US price $400, UK price £400, it's DRM'ed up to the eyeballs and will degrade performance if it suspects your watching something that's not legit (and going by the half million people that WGA incorrectly identified i'm not exactly confident). You don't own Vista you lease it. It seems a lot of hassle for a 3D Alt&Tab window. I could go on.

2. Don't know for sure but if not I'd get a clean box and buy a copy of XP (hell I'm thinking of converting the linux)

3. Better than PC World, Dixons etc but not as good as a custom build if you know someone who knows what they are doing.

[M3boy]

I have just bought a new Dell Dimension E521

If you want XP instead of Vista - which is what I have done.

Just save your order, then phone Dell and tell them the order number and say you want XP instead of vista and they will send you a new order with XP on it for you to accept.

This is my first PC I have bought, I used to just buy the bits and do a self build (as it was cheaper) but it is now cheaper to buy a pre built system.

[Linux]

2. Don't know for sure but if not I'd get a clean box and buy a copy of XP (hell I'm thinking of converting the linux)

Why me???

[totalise]

i just got a new PC and chose to have Vista installed on it and Im as happy as can be with it... it is simpler then XP and has more cool features.

[KingPoker]

Cheers all of you, looks like im going to do what paul did.

[M3boy]

i just got a new PC and chose to have Vista installed on it and Im as happy as can be with it... it is simpler then XP and has more cool features.

I was gonna take the Vista plunge, but found out that my Office software would not run on Vista and would not be Vista compatable until late this year.

[RichEO]

I've been running vista for a few months, no major problems. Well, none I couldn't fix

I have the luxury of an XP pc sitting right next to it incase I need it. But overall, if your getting a new PC with it all installed and the right drivers, that will eradicate a lot of the problems.

Do you want to pay for XP now and then pay for Vista again when you decide you want it?

There are some nice features on vista. The main ones I have found and like are the speech recognition, much improved task mananger and the side bar (lots of gadgets to download for it). There are of course lots of visual tweaks, windows aero, 3D-alt tab as its been put, although it's actually windows+tab, alt tabe gives you previews of all open windows in a box. When you mouse over any taskbar windows you get a preview, useful if you have lots of browsers open and you don't know which is which. And coupled with Office 2007 everything looks nice indeed.

There are more useful features, and some that are a pain (like finding my way around the network settings  ), I turned off User Account Control as 90% of people will.

You could alwyas dual boot your PC with vista and XP.
http://lifehacker.com/software/top/windows-vista-beta--how-to-dualboot-windows-xp-and-windows-vista-179906.php

[RichEO]

i just got a new PC and chose to have Vista installed on it and Im as happy as can be with it... it is simpler then XP and has more cool features.

I was gonna take the Vista plunge, but found out that my Office software would not run on Vista and would not be Vista compatable until late this year.

Is that office XP? I've had 2003 and 2007 running fine.