I will be upgrading if i can get it cheap enough through my academic alliance. I will not be buying new hardware for it...(yet). I will wait until the 2nd generation of quadcore intel processors are out (the actual true quad core ones) and i will build my machine around that chip and what ever technology goes along with it (hopefully some hybrid hard drives too). I am excited, but i am nervous as to being an early adoptor of it as like anything new, there will be lots of problems. Its not really anyones fault, it is just ineviatable and near impossible to avoid with any new major tech release now a days.

Here in the UK, Dell is advertising a new PC for £299. IF I was considering upgrading, given the coast of the new OS I would most certainly consider purchasing a new PC.

Based on what I've seen, I WON'T be buying a new PC. XP (and Windows 2000) are FINE for anything I can think of running or that I need to run...

...and I feel more comfortable (and more in pocket!) running Linux Servers for Web Hosting /FTP connectivity etc.

And, BASED on what I've seen in the past I certainly won't be upgrading until at least SP1 and all the 'undocumented features' will be ironed out.

Roger that exactly.

yeah i agree that xp does everything just fine and there is no real need to get vista. However, it will obvioulsy take over within the next few years and it will be what about 30-35% of users are using (in 2 yrs time). I will upgrade only if it is not too expensive (under $200 for the ultamate version), but hopefully my academic aliance will provide me with a free copy.

Will 3ghz HT CPU and 1024mb RAM and 256mb Video card run Vista?

And dont give up on XP. I still run 1x Win 3.11, 1x Win NT 3.51, 3x Win NT4, 3x Win 2K as well as 1x Win 98SE. There all fine for day to day things

of course it will, upgrading to 2gb ram will make it blazing, but that will be more than enough.

What is academic allieance?
I have student edition of office is that what you mean? (im 16 at college). Can you get XP cheap for being a student?

I don't plan to buy anything new for Vista as of now. My 3.06 MHz hyperthreaded Pentium 4 should be able to run whatever I need.

Is it me or are OSes getting slower?
My 20mhz Windows 3.11 machine still works. I can do inyernet, email, networking, office, accounts and music all from it still and ity only has 10mb of RAM. I think windows needs to be rewritten from scratch.