How essential is vista?

[MartinJol]

I am going to be buying a laptop in the near future, and I was wondering, how important would you guys say Windows Vista was?

Most of the laptops I am looking at have Vista Home Premium, but I am perfectly happy with my XP desktop PC, and there seem to be some decent laptops quite cheap at the moment because they still have Windows Xp.

Also, could someone tell me the difference between Home premium, and Media Centre editions of XP?

Thanks in advance.

 

[TheDiceman]

Vista as a standard exists because Microsoft is dropping support of XP at teh end of this year. Personally I do not see it as being neccessary at all, at least not until DX10 becomes a standard.

 

[motoxer4533]

Vista isn't really great right now. Not everything is compatible yet, and there are still bugs.

I have it and am dual-booting it and xp, and i use xp 95% of the time.

It's not necessary yet, but it will be the norm in about a year.

 

[KingAustin]

Vista as a standard exists because Microsoft is dropping support of XP at teh end of this year.

Not true. » Vista Mythbusters #3: Will Microsoft dump XP to push Vista? | Ed Bott's Microsoft Report | ZDNet.com

"So, assuming Microsoft sticks to its announced January 2007 release date for the consumer version of Windows Vista (or even if they delay the official release until February or March 2007), that means mainstream support for all versions of Windows XP will continue at least until April 14, 2009."