There's a lot of strange information circulating these days about Vista.  For the most part, it's getting panned pretty badly by various tech bloggers and pundits -- much of which, quite frankly, is undeserved in my opinion.  I've now been through a handful of Vista upgrades, plus worked with numerous new computers that came with Vista pre-installed and have not run in to that many issues.  Now there's a bigger question here -- why would you want Vista in the first place, particularly if you have Windows XP (or even better Windows 2000) currently running problem-free?  For now, let's just assume that you do need to upgrade to Vista for whatever reasons.  Is it really as bad as a lot of people are saying?  My experience says that it's not -- but there are a couple of guidelines that don't get mentioned a whole lot that you definitely should follow.

1) Leave User Access Control Alone!

This is by far and away the most important guideline -- DO NOT under any circumstances do anything to disable or get around the built-in User Access Control (UAC).  Yes, this newly implemented security control is a royal PITA.  And so you will read a lot of Vista tweaking guides that will show you various ways to work around the UAC prompts.  In my experience, all of these will end up causing some type of disaster.  Just don't do it.  I went through a lot of the same problems that many people are writing about, but once I did a clean install and left UAC alone, virtually all my problems disappeared.  So if you are having problems with Vista and have messed with UAC in any form or fashion, five to one says that's the problem.  Start over and leave UAC alone and see what you think.

2) Make Sure Your Programs Are Vista Compatible

When you start installing and running your application programs with Vista, should you get some type of unexpected or weird error message, STOP RIGHT THERE and do not proceed until you've investigated just how compatible this application is with Vista.  Other than seeing UAC prompts, programs should run pretty much the same as they do in previous versions of Windows.  If they don't, that's a very good sign that the program is not really Vista compatible (regardless of what the manufacturer might say).  Do some simple searching to see what other people are saying about the program running with Vista.  It might be that there's a later release that you need to get, or perhaps an update.  But whatever you do, don't simply ignore warnings or errors and try to plow ahead -- that quite likely will start you down the road to a very unstable operating system.  Previous versions of Windows seemed to be more robust in this respect, but not so with Vista.  If a program doesn't want to work right, give it up and find an alternative.  Or use this as a legitimate excuse not to use Vista.

3) Make Sure Your Hardware Is Vista Compatible

This is just a ditto of the cautions on application programs.  I really haven't run in to many driver issues -- my experience is that drivers are either available or they are not.  But if you do have Vista compatible drivers that are generating oddball messages, then that's another good sign that you need to back off of Vista.  Again, don't try to force the issue.

4) Use Ready Boost!

The "Ready Boost" feature is one of the very best -- if not THE best -- feature of Vista.  I have no idea why it doesn't get more publicity and kudos.  It's easy to implement, it works without any hassle, and it can give you a significant speed boost.  Now one of the complaints about Vista that you hear a lot of is that it's not as fast as XP.  Well, if you've been using computers for any length of time you know that it's a given that any new operating system is going to run slower than it's predecessor, given the same hardware.  That's just the way the industry works -- Microsoft is really no exception.  O/S upgrades have all kinds of new features, which inevitably take up more memory and more computer cycles, which means the new O/S will run a bit slower.  And in the past that's always been a catch-22 when upgrading a computer to a new O/S -- you need to upgrade your hardware in order to get the same performance that you had with the old O/S.  But once you upgrade the hardware, you can just as easily stick with the old O/S and it will be even faster than it was, and it will always be faster than the new O/S.

But that's where Ready Boost changes the equation.  It's not supported on XP -- so with the exact same hardware you can actually make Vista faster than XP.  My main production computer is a good example of this.  I have it set up with dual-boot using Windows 2000 (which trust me is significantly faster than XP) along with Vista.  And without Ready Boost, it is indeed significantly faster when running Windows 2000.  HOWEVER, once I add a 1GB USB memory stick (available for $25 or less) Vista runs noticeably faster than even Windows 2000!  Since my main concern in using a computer is speed, this one feature is what makes Vista worth it for me.

5) Turn Off The Aero Interface

Finally, if you do decide to go with Vista, by all means turn off the Aero interface -- or if you are upgrading to Vista and your graphics card doesn't support the Aero interface don't bother upgrading your graphics card.  Aero is nothing but eye candy.  It's fun for about a day or two, maybe a week -- but after that, all it's doing is slowing things down.  There's no need for it at all -- if you are really all that hooked on eye candy, you probably ought to be using an Apple anyway!

Bottom line?  If you're happy with XP, the old adage "If it ain't broke, don't fix it" certainly applies.  But if for whatever reasons you are upgrading to Vista, it's not near as bad as a lot of people would have you believe.  Just follow the guidelines above and I suspect you will be OK.  But do keep your old XP CD's handy, just in case!