i vote for vista...ive had vista since about august of 2006, when it was in testing...and i still have it, ive only had to reinstall it about...3-4 times or so since than...
I have another PC running Xp Media Center Edition 2005...ive had it longer and probably had to reinstall it like 6+ times...in just the last about 2-3 months today is my third+ time trying to install it, and it wont detect my hard drive, i get lots of blue screens, when a program freezes, so does the whole computer...while in vista when a program freezes, i just minimize it until it unfreezes while i work on the other programs...and rarely does vista freeze...
I dont know how people are using vista, anything i install, old, new programs, everything works with vista...if one problem comes up, everyone comes straight to the forum to complain that vista sucks...any problem that came in my way i fixed it, spent hours or days, i learned something new, something better, and made my Vista better...and im still working fine with Vista Service Pack 1...NO problems...
So my vote goes for vista no matter what...I hate XP...i have built 5 computers....1 running XP...(mine, keeps breaking down) and 4 running vista, 1 is mine, 1 mine cousins, and 2 built for 2 of my other friends...all running vista, everyone says its running very smooth and fast, no problems...
You just got to take your time with vista, test it...testing means you run it for like a month and solve problems that come up...not run it for 5 minutes, an error comes up because of your mistake and you complain that vista sucks....remember...Don't judge a book by it's cover!
You want to know the real vista? test it yourself...
(P.S. Read my signature, it applies to this whole post)