New Laptop on the way, with Vista. Downgrade?

[Infobahn]

New Laptop, some specs - Intel C2D T7500 (2.2GHz, 800Mhz, 4M L2 Cache) 3GB, DDR2, 667MHz with 200gb 7200rpm

It comes with Vista Ultimate installed.  Do I downgrade to XP pro?  Do I Dual Boot it?

[VikingJuice]

New Laptop, some specs - Intel C2D T7500 (2.2GHz, 800Mhz, 4M L2 Cache) 3GB, DDR2, 667MHz with 200gb 7200rpm

It comes with Vista Ultimate installed.  Do I downgrade to XP pro?  Do I Dual Boot it?

Nice RAM!!  I need more of that on my PC.  512 just isn't cutting it.

As many problems as I've heard/read about for Vista, you likely will be better off with XP Pro until MS gets off it's esteemed ass and fixed the plethora of Vista issues.

My building just found out that Dell will soon stop supporting XP and will have Vista on all its newer machines.  That could be bad for my campus since we're already light on tech type folks who can trouble shoot minor issues.

[Beefy]

Nice RAM!!

Thanks!  I just had it stuffed!

[meredith]

vista works fine for me, and i molest my system in ways it will only share by pointing out on a doll in a courtroom

[BigDun]

If it came pre-loaded with Vista, I probably wouldn't go through the trouble of downgrading it. You could always load the free MS Virtual PC software and run both.

[Infobahn]

If it came pre-loaded with Vista, I probably wouldn't go through the trouble of downgrading it. You could always load the free MS Virtual PC software and run both.

Sweet.  I didn't know about this.
I would still need to buy a copy of WinXP Pro?  I know I can get it OEM for $139 at new egg.

[VikingJuice]

vista works fine for me, and i molest my system in ways it will only share by pointing out on a doll in a courtroom

Scary.

[ReBurn]

I agree with hatt. If you needed to run XP you could install Microsoft Virtual PC and install XP on a virtual machine. You will need a copy of XP Pro, but it solves the compatibility issues. I like that software because you can do a base install of XP and then keep a pristine copy of the VPC image in case you ever want to trash your XP install and start over. Really cool stuff.

With those specs you should be able to run Vista Ultimate with no problems. I hope that SP1 will do for Vista what SP2 did for XP.

[BigDun]

If it came pre-loaded with Vista, I probably wouldn't go through the trouble of downgrading it. You could always load the free MS Virtual PC software and run both.

Sweet.  I didn't know about this.
I would still need to buy a copy of WinXP Pro?  I know I can get it OEM for $139 at new egg.

Yes, but keep in mind that when VPC is launched, it will occupy a memory footprint that you define. If you want to run a 1GB VPC, then when you launch it, you will be running in a 2GB Vista environment. If you dedicate 2GB of memory to the XP VPC, then Vista will be down to 1GB when you launch VPC.

[Infobahn]

Okay, the new laptop is here, and I am posting from it.  So far, so good.  I have a copy of XP Pro coming from NewEgg, and I will get it loaded via VPC this week.  Thanks for the advice.  I like this key board so much better, but this is the personal machine, so I will still have to use the other one.