windows xp will be around for a long time for one reason it WORKS all of the previous MS OS's (exception of 98SE) stink hard 98SE, however old it is, if used sparingly by an undemanding user and with adequate protection, will run forever. email and internet and solitaire? 98se is for you! after loading vista b1 myself, and all the problems I ran into..(im sure theyll get fixed)..its just not THAT much better than xp, and runs alot slower than xp on my athlonxp 3200 with 2gig ram should be called win nt 5.3, not 6 sure there are alot of cool features, but there are many totally free 3rd party programs that do a better job at whatever (except ms antispyware which rocks) its up to each user, but honestly microsoft needs to lower prices on it's OS's or really need to make pro version FOR professionals versus now just being a 'complete' windows (as home is slimmed down abit)