Vista problems: Content protection
The wacko drivers, the slow copying, and so on are all due to the insane Premium Content Protection in Vista, which is NOT there in anything earlier. This destructive garbage and the eye candy are all that's new in Vista, and none of it is worthwhile. Visit http://www.cs.auckland.ac.nz/~pgut001/pubs/vista_cost.html for a good time.
On the desktop, go to XP or 2k, or get a Mac, or use Linux if you can get it to print properly with your printer (printing always was X's weak spot; it's improved rapidly in Linux but still isn't quite there for a lot of hardware).
There is absolutely no reason to use Vista. Ever. For anything. With any sort of luck, Vista will be M$' version of the PS/2, which was so bad (twenty years ago) that all by itself it completely blasted IBM out of the PC hardware business -- a market which it had dominated overwhelmingly since the PC was first introduced.
Biting the hand that feeds IT
