From: "Geo." 

"Gary Britt"  wrote in
message news:45b6b11f$1{at}w3.nls.net...

> So Here are my questions.  Since Vista Basic is basically XP Home and I
> like XP Home would I be happy with Vista Basic??

Vista gets rid of a few annoying things like narco the search and seisure
doggie, however it contains more drm, more copy protection, and more phone
home crap.

> A.  Is Vista Basic going to be slower and resource hoggish compared to XP
> Home?  If so by how much?

Maybe, maybe not, it depends on what features you turn on or off, the
indexing is a pig, some of the gadgets are pigs, there are tons of services
you don't need to have running, etc. But after tuning and turning off
glitzy crap it's about like XP.

> B.  Does the Vista deactivation features make it impossible to trust and
> therefore unusable regardless of the answers to my other questions?

Yes but if you use windows update you have the same problem with XP. What
you don't have with xp, or at least not yet, is the solid underpinnings of
a full blown DRM  based video and sound subsystem.

> C.  Any compelling feature in Vista Basic not in XP Home?

Nope, nothing great, given the choice I still prefer W2K as I've not seen
any must have feature added since then. But there is some fun stuff. One
thing you should know, lots of software is not compatible with Vista, lots.

> So what's your recommendation regarding Vista Basic versus XP Home?

I recommend you stay away from both. But I would say that wouldn't I? 

> Should I buy an OEM license for Win2K or XP Pro/Home and wipe Vista Basic
> off a new computer?

W2K has a very limited life left, in fact they are already playing the bad
patch or no patch type game, you can't get things like IE7, etc. I'd say
get it with Vista, if you can't live with vista then bite the bullet now
and move to some distro of linux. MS is lost, it's just a matter of time.
As the HD stuff comes center stage, lots of folks are going to find vista
is nothing but a money pit.

Geo.

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