Tip:
Ditch Vista
Install XP
How I agree with that. I recently bought an HP laptop with Vista, and within 3 hours had to restore it to factory settings: I installed Alcohol 120%, and apparently the version I had installed the Virtual Driver Emulation driver that was incompatible with Vista, so it permanently crashed.
Then there are other issues; terrible system performance, incredibly annoying security checks, strange 'administrator mode' bugs and many many incompatibilities with both games and programs. Example; I recently went overseas and my telephone company advertised an International Dial-up Roaming service (yes, its slow as hell, but its better than nothing). In order to use this service, you need to download a program which, of course, is incompatible with Vista. Even in compatibility mode.
Honestly, XP is the way to go. Actually, Mac OS X is the way to go, but my HDD is too small to dual boot them (that and the 50 GB of games and music I have take up too much space), so I'm stuck with one OS. And since THAT hasn't got all the bugs out yet (not to mention the 5GB download), unless you're a computer wizz, I wouldn't recommend it.
Since XP is practically free now, and I am le cheap, I'd definitely choose XP for my next computer.