Vista, Schmvista -- missing the point...
Even if Windows Vista were better than all my current operating systems, I would still opt for a free (as in freedom) version of GNU/Linux. Of course, if Free operating systems in general were so bad as to actually be worse than Windows Vista, I would certainly not expect my less technically-orientated friends to also use them. However, this "Linux is not ready for the desktop" I keep hearing is simply not true. However good Windows and/or Macs are, this myth about the usability of GNU/Linux is a complete falsehood.
I would also like to point out that just because you (yes, YOU, the person reading this comment at the moment wondering whether to reply to it!) have had a perfect, or near-perfect user experience of Windows Vista, doesn't mean that everybody else is lying about their 12 minute start-up times. And vice-versa.
Something I find mildly humourous is the fact that Windows Xp is 5, that's right FIVE years old. Now, I'm not saying that everyone should format, and reinstall a new operating system every year, in fact, it should be possible to keep an OS running for ever with suitable updates (see Debian), BUT if you say that Xp is `better' than Vista (it definitely seems to be), then you are effectively saying that every operating system released since 2003 is similarly better than Vista. Doesn't the thought of running a 5-year-old OS worry anybody? Especially with Xp's security record.
There are literally tens of seemingly cloned comments here, all saying "Well obviously Windows Xp is going to run faster on the same hardware." Well, no. If anything, Windows Vista should run faster on older hardware (not *extremely* old hardware, obviously) because its code should have been tidied up and made more efficient (I seem to recall this happening, based on third-hand knowledge, to a recent SuSE release). Besides, the Laptop mentioned in the article was a _modern_ laptop, which was advertised has being capable of running Vista.
Finally, if you've noticed that Both Xp and Vista grind to a halt, gradually, after several months of use, that doesn't make Vista Better. It makes them equally rubbish.
Gotta love the posters who are either trolls, or are ignorably (i.e. it's easy to ignore their pitiful contributions) ignorant, and fill their posts with profanity and easily-disprovable falsehoods (like "Vista is good", "Mac OS X is good", or "Linux is an OS, rather than a kernel". Actually ignore this bit in brackets, it's too sarcastic.)