Replacing Vista with XP should not present a problem on most systems, those with OEM partitioned recovery options though might need a little wizardry to get around the fact that the partition is often hidden and protected, even so a simple format of the HDD will oblitorate the dreaded Vista leaving a clean slate to install a fresh new copy of XP on. yummy!. and with a five year ongoing support program now assured by Microsoft it is a fair bet that a lot of people will stick with XP for the forseeable future, much to Bills disgust.
The ongoing problem of driver supllies for Vista will haunt the community for many months, and a lot of peripheral suppliers will take the chance to force a sales boom by not updating there driver files to accomodate Vista for older models.
The trouble does not stp there however as many purchasers of the latest games are now finding out, Vista comes with the all singing and dancing DirectX 10 for which all new games are now being drawn up, they are not in anyway backwards compatible and will not run correctly or at all on DX9c and there is no fix or workaround that can be had that will ever make them, so beware, read the box carefully, a number of contacts are already getting enquiries about this one numbering in the thousands per day.
Graphics cards to are also going too feel the effects as older models, those older than a few months ago will struggle with DX 10 and the vista interface which sapped the life out of my own workshop model until shut off.
So with Vista, you pays your money and you takes Bills choice, a warmed over version of XP untill you get too the top end enterprise versions good only as a marketing excersise and for Bills wallet.
My own thoughts........
