My home built PC currently runs XP Professional Edition. I plan on upgrading to Vista when it comes out, but I'm not sure which version of Vista I should get. I don't plan on hooking up my PC to any of my other home entertainment products like my TV or stereo, and I don't own an Xbox 360. I don't work from home. I just have a simple home built PC that I play games on now and then (with a Radeon 9800 Pro vid card) and like the bells and whistles. What version would fit me best, do you think?

Just don't buy the cheapest on minimal one, as you don't know what you might upgrade to, or what an uncle might give you a year or two up the road.

Well, how much memory do you have in your computer. One gigabyte is the least amount I would recommend for Vista (It's a memory hog). If you have a small amount and don't want to upgrade, the Vista package that does not offer the Aero will best suit you.

Absolutely true, although if he will have issues running the hardware, he might want to stick with the version w/o all of the memory using features (Aero).

Perhaps you don't need Vista?

But to answer your question, Vista Home Premium. Home Basic is pretty worthless and I don't think you'll be happy with it in the years to come.

I don't think that Vista will be necessary for about 3-4 years, so I won't be upgrading .

I just gotta say, I am loving vista so far. The Aero interface is simply beautiful and a massive upgrade to XP. It is still kinda buggy (running RC1) so every once and a while I have to go back to XP to run programs (games in particular) and whenever I go back to XP, it FEELS like a step back. The way the windows glide open and closed, the gadgets on the side. Some will disagree I am sure, but it is a great looking OS. Is it worth the price? Perhaps for some, no it won't be.

But for me, an absolute yes, just for the Aero interface alone (not to mention DX10 games if they deliver and turn out to be as good as the screenshots look).

I'm not going to rush out and get it at first....probably wait about six months or so to see what happens with it. I have essentially 1 GB of memory. My board supports 4 memory slots, but it acts kind of goofy when I have all four of my 512 MB modules in there. I took out 2 of the 512 MB chips (and I've checked them with Memtest and they're OK, so I think it's just a memory slot thing) and it seems to be working fine.

On the topic of upgrading, I'll probably build a new PC this year at some point. My ASUS motherboard has only an AGP video slot, the horror!

What's this Aero interface that people are talking about for Vista? What does it do?

Here's a link that might be useful:

http://www.microsoft.com/Windowsvista/

I won't be upgrading to Vista soon, although I am building custom systems now that can run Vista easily. My system will run Vista if I change a few programs, like Halo and remove my PCI IDE controller. I am running Nortons 360 beta version program. Run the Vista Advisor tool and see what it tells you

I'm currently running the full version of Vista Enterprise and yes, it is a bit of a memory hog. Aero is gorgeous (and not buggy at all in the current build) but I would recommend an absolute minimum of 1 GB if not 2 GB or RAM to have a decent feel with the OS. Also, if you don't really have a need then why upgrade at all? I am using it because I have to for work, but my primary gaming machine (I have several machines with different functions) is still running WinXP SP2. Even my secondary and tertiary gaming machines are running XP. Stick with XP for now if it's only used for gaming - at least until you need to move to Vista for that purpose or get a really, really beefy machine by today's standards.