windows Vista has been on sale to the general populations around the world since January. Like many other retailers, Dell began offering its hardware with Vista pre-installed. On Dell's Idea Storm site where visitors can post suggestions for the company and vote on the suggestions that are important, suggestions and votes are going strong requesting Dell to pre-install Windows XP instead of Windows Vista, or even one of the top three Linux flavours instead of Windows Vista.

Generally, it seems many people are questioning whether going to the trouble of installing Vista is worth the effort. For many people I speak to it seems that people are quite content with the functionality Windows XP provides.

I know for myself, I am not going to run Windows Vista. I tried. Dutifully I went out and purchased Vista on the first day it was onsale to the public and then took the next 12 hours trying to make it work for my computer. After three weeks of working with Microsoft telephone help, and putting up with the sign that said "You are not running a valid copy of Windows", and re-booting the machine every three hours to get rid of that sign, I threw the Vista package and CD in the cupboard and wrote the cost of the software up to experience.

Instead, on my main computer I am running Ubuntu, which took, by the way, under two hours to settle in and another 1 hour of picking my way through some options and possible other programs to run. On my other computers I have not changed them from the XP they were running.

Apart from a few screen effects and a few other nice little ways of doing stuff and oh, a few security issues, I cannot see the benefit Vista has over XP. What I need a computer for, and I believe you may be in the same boat, is to get real things done, like earning money, writing quotes, business plans, email connection with the world. Maybe you can convince me otherwise?