What is the difference between different versions of Vista - Ultimate, Home Basic etc.. is there anything significant or is it mostly just for show ?

Just avoid Vista. Guess the different versions have to do with networking capabilities.

WinXP is better. I think Microsoft knows that too as they let us know that Windows 7 is coming. Vista is a fiasco.

Hans

I bought a cheap Compaq laptop recently, and to my chagrin, there was no hardware driver support for XP to be found.

I don't mind it for general purposes, but it sucks when you don't get a choice.

I have run both XP and Vista Ultimate with Cubase 4. I would say they run about the same. I like Vista a little better and do not agree that Vista is a failure. At least not for my setup. I run Cubase 4 with Tascam 1641 USB audio interface. I did roll back to XP to see if I could get better performance on my new Quad Core box, but now I am getting artifacts in my tracks. So, i would have to say it prob really depends on what your gear is and what you are trying to do with it. I am going back to Vista.

There are SIGNIFICANT differences.

64bit=one big one for music production. In fact, it's, IMO, the only reason to upgrade. I almost want to say you need the most expensive package to get the choice of 32 or 64bit...I know when I originally looked into it for my sampler/sequencing box that I thought it sucked because they'd structured it where I would HAVE to buy the big one...and 64bit memory addressing was the only reason I was looking at it as a possibility.