Again, if you’re buying a new PC with Vista pre-installed, don’t downgrade — you’ll gain nothing in the process.

Also if you want a clean install of Vista on a computer with Vista pre-installed, consider purchasing an OEM version like I did. The savings are significant and you’ll always have the option to do another clean install in the future if needed (much better than the “recovery” disk option). Also, you can try a “crap” remover such as “PC DeCrapifier” (http://pcdecrapifier.com/) which won’t require you purchase a separate copy of Vista.

Thanks for the comment.

As for the failed updates for the Intel Chipset and NIC, I would recommend going straight to the Intel website and see what Vista drivers they have available to download and use those. A wise instructor once told me if the current driver works don’t change it. I’ve only regretted not following that advice one time and thank goodness for the “Rollback Driver” feature.

A couple words of wisdom for prospective Vista users:

1. If you are ordering a new PC or laptop with Vista, make sure that you start out with a MINIMUM of 2GB RAM. From all the pissing and moaning I’ve read from other users, 1GB worked but they weren’t happy until they added another Gig. I would even go as far as making sure that the RAM on my new PC or laptop could be upgraded to 4GB if I ever wanted to.

2. Again, from what I’ve read from tech savvy IT geeks you don’t want to buy a new laptop or PC thinking you can downgrade it to XP. Many of the hardware vendors are not offering XP drivers for Vista machines.

My supervisor and his admin both have HP Vista laptops that I ordered and they love it. What I didn’t care for was the bundled crap that comes with it. I would rather take an upgradeable laptop or workstation and load Vista from scratch and the apps that I want.