Meh. I am conceding the vista point now.
Vista died on me, gracefully would not be the word to describe the total collapse of an operating system from the kernel up. It folded on so many fronts that the hard drive itself took physical damage.
And, me being me, I just took the damn thing apart. Opening a hard drive is NOT a recommended activity. The whole process took four hours.
But I fixed it.
After that, I reinstalled XP.
I posted in another forum that I play X2 - the threat. The specs for this game are a JOKE - even a system significantly faster than the recommended specs struggles to render shadows, bumpmaps and full anti-aliasing when being attacked by 64 ships.
My system, on Vista, could not.
My system, on Xp, can. SMOOTHLY.

I have to jump.
For even if I fall, for a moment, I will fly.