Or at least turn your Windoze box into a Linux box. 

Am running Fedora Core on a six year old Dell laptop, and am getting excellent usage out of it.  I am hard pressed at this time to want to upgrade to a faster machine... 

That's really funny!

It still boils down to, at least with me, the price of an entry level mac is kind of steep. Apple almost feels "elitist" at times. I wish they'd come up with a better alternative for the budget impaired potential customer.

But out of context.

You can complain all you'd like about Vista and how one might suffer from Vista related problems.  But, in the end, you are just as responsible for Vista not working, in most cases.  Exceptions exist and Microsoft shares responsibility.  So do PC vendors and 3rd party device drivers.

Why?

While there are many reasons Vista may not work on a particular PC, ultimately the end user has a responsibility to evaluate their personal situation.  As an open platform, unlike Apple, Microsoft caters to the world.  By this I mean you have an endless number of choices when deciding what video, audio, network, TV tuner, what have you, driver you want to install.  But, if you don't do your homework and determine the viability of these products how can you possibly bellyache?  We provide pre-install routines that will check compatibility in advance and quite often the warnings of incompatible hardware are ignored.  Buyer beware.  Software is subject to human error as is any development of a product.

Let's take Norm as an example if we could.  You have no business (not personal) running Vista on hardware that is 10 years old, period.  Why anyone would consider running Vista on hardware that old is beyond me.  How many different cell phones have you owned in 10 years?  A cell phone OS, whether it is Symbian (Nokia and others) or Windows Mobile, or any other OS that runs phones (yes, OS'es run phones), is a very small amount of code relative to a PC OS.

Consider the effort that Microsoft makes to accept the plethora of hardware in the Windows market and the time that it takes to test this hardware.  We do it because we can, and should.  We also do it because it is the right thing to do.  Not all vendors subscribe to our processes and they suffer as a result.  This is where Vista fails to perform and Microsoft should make no excuse here.  We provide an approved HCL (Hardware Compatibility List) for Vista and while it is strict, it is not unreasonable.  Troubleshooting problems related to incompatible hardware is not cheap yet we do it on a daily basis and submit the results back to the vendors through proven methods.  What the vendor decides to fix is up to them.  We do all we can to assist in these efforst and no doubt lose money while doing it.  Should we?  Of course, but it is not without sacrifice.

I run Vista SP1 (beta) on a Lenovo T60p 64-bit machine running a 64-bit Vista OS.  I've been running this setup for nearly a year without any problems.  No blue screens.  No crashes.  The reason I don't have problems is because I'm serious about stability and ensure non-Micorosft software is up to the task.  Do you?  I know the machine I have is capable of performing under these conditions.  Do you?

I'm not trying to absolve Microsoft of its duty as a platform.  We make mistakes and we concentrate on rectifying those mistakes.  You might see this every Tuesday (when necessary) if you enable Automatic Updates.  If you choose not to enable these updates or decline to install needed updates it is your fault for not managing your computer as needed.  If you continue to have problems and have supported hardware it is either a bug or a configuration problem.  You won't be charged for calling support and submitting what turns out to be a Microsoft bug.  You will be charged if it turns out to be a configuration problem.  You won't be charged if the problem can be tied back to a 3rd party bug.  What more do you want?

Don't reply with half-ass jabs.  If you have a serious problem on Vista I can help and WILL help.  Just let me know the details and I'll be happy to direct you to a solution or the proper channels to get you help.

The Apple ads are funny.  They are also very dishonst.  What Apple won't tell you is that Vista also runs on MAC's and may suffer from the same problems that you see on PC's.  What I can't get past is that Apple is so tied up in mocking Microsoft they forget to talk about the positives of their closed platform.  Go figure.