I've done nothing maintenance-wise, other than having installed Forefront and scheduling complete backup weekly, and my Vista systems keep running fine. Just stay off the pr0n sites, don't click on links promising to help you "clean" your system or install "free codec packs."

My main XP system--which had AVG rather than Forefront--ran for five years with only one required re-install, from a main disk failure. And that just required a re-install from backup.

The Mac crowd can keep drinking Jobs' kool-aid and overpaying for their mandated, inflexible Apple hardware dongle (which makes the 1984 commercial ironic).

Three examples:

- You want a FireWire port on your laptop: please upgrade to our "pro" model No, we don't supply an ExpressCard slot in our basic laptop unlike just about every mid-range laptop on the planet (although ours is overpriced for a mid-range laptop). Bottom-line from Apple: we know what you want better than you do.

- You want a display? Use our DisplayPort technology, it's all you need because we say so. Oh, but you have a component DVD player, an HDMI output from your camcorder, a PC and an XBOX you want to hook up to it. Sorry, there's just one port. But pay premium on the display anyway, please, 'cause it's designed by Apple, sucker

- You need to replace your battery in your laptop: please bring or send it back to us because you're incompetent. And you're SOL if your work requires you to be able to swap out batteries in the field because we don't think you need to

Vista is a much better operating system than XP if you have appropriate hardware. Windows 7 looks to be better still and will run better on lower spec'd systems compared to Vista.

There's so much misinformation out there about Windows. The Vista transition was not good because the new, more secure driver model wasn't adopted by enough hardware vendors at release and the higher hardware requirements. Partly Microsoft's fault and partly the fault of their model being so successful that there are millions of devices to choose from for Windows. Unlike Mac and Mac software where your choices are probably two orders of magnitude fewer, or more.