I had heard alot of bad press about vista. When i started using it i hated it and wanted to go back to XP but i thought i will stick with it for a while and see how i got on.
Once i got use to the features and where everything was and turned of the annoying pop ups that always appear everytime you try and install and unstall programs ect i found that it is really easy to us.
The OS seems to be alot different to windows XP as things either seem to be hidden or in a totally different place to where you expect it to be.
Overall i thnk windows vista is great just takes alot of getting use to and playing around with but after a while you will start wondering why you hated it to start with.
My advice to anyone who upgrades to vista and hates it as much as i did is stick with it and you will really start to enjoy using it.