After purchasing a new laptop I recently had the chance to use Windows Vista for the first time. We have all seen the annoying Mac ads about Windows Vista telling us why we shouldn't get it. After using it (on a brand new computer which makes me a bit bias) I like Windows Vista. I really don't see any reason from somebody who purchases a new computer to uninstall Vista and put something else on there. Now for people without Vista I don't really see a reason for them to update either. I mean Windows XP was a really, really good OS compared to many of the others. XP did everything we wanted and better. Vista on the other hand is similar to XP but with pretty colors and such.
Some nice features in Vista are when you're navigating folders you can click in the address bar on folders 3 levels above and go directly to them. Another nice thing is the new various way you can view files while exploring them. Also there are the new gadgets sidebar taken from the Mac of course but it is still cool. I personally enjoy getting rss feeds updated constantly with my gadgets. One thing about the gadgets is they seem to loose focus when you click off of them and then they disappear. If there is such a feature it would be nice if they would appear above all other windows and remain open all the time.
Some of the downfalls of Vista are the annoying User Account Control popups (UAC) not to be confused with UAC. Basically UAC is a safeguard for Microsoft to cover their butts if your computer messes up via spyware or the new Bonzi Buddy. To the dumb computer user this will scare them, to the normal and advanced it will annoy them. While the Mac commercials like to rip on this over and over again it's really not a big deal. Go to the control panel, click a button and voila, your back to normal (just like Windows XP again). No more popups, no more Mac commercials.
So if you really like Windows XP and want Vista, I say buy it. If you are just curious I say wait until your next computer. If you have just bought a computer with Vista on it, Enjoy!