Depends really on what you define as 'better'. XP has been well patched, and runs stabily on most currently operational hardware. Vista requires more modern hardware, and (as with XP) the more the merrier. Don't be frugal on RAM or processor power, though the 64-bit and 32-bit arguments will go on for several years still.

System requirements and licensing aside, Vista is the next generation Microsoft platform for desktops, and it has a few 'neat' gadgets, but nothing overwhelmingly worth the price of the upgrade.If your computer sits under the desk and does it's thing day in and day out, stick with XP.

For laptops however, it's an entirely different story. A laptop designed to work with Vista, (signed drivers, etc) will gain from one critical feature in Vista, the ability to seamlessly switch from network to network (though this feature is available only in the Ultimate version) with few if any hitches.However, if you have one or two networks you work off of (home and work for instance) honestl? It's a bit of a pricy upgrade for seamless network switching, I'd say stick with XP. If you are a true mobile user (airports, hotels, home, and twelve work locations) you might want to consider Vista.

Similar to the Windows 2000 -> Windows XP migration, the XP -> Vista migration will come in stages. The early adopters are there now finding issues and reporting back their problems to Microsoft. Patches are released and really unless you are quite saavy with technology and want that bleeding edge, wait for Service Pack 1 which should correct the majority of the common day-to-day issues. After SP1, there will be another rash of people who upgrade, and around SP2 most of the corporate world will begin their eventual migration as well.

As with the advent of Windows 95/NT 3.51, Windows 98/NT 4.0, Windows 2000 and Windows XP Windows Vista will recieve a lot "Vista is a piece of crap" posts from people running on hardware at the lower end of the spectrum without signed or approved drivers (and typically running drivers for the previous operating system), or "Vista won't run my mission critical software" which is a frigtheningly old DOS-based version of a database program that makes Access look good. If it's that mission critical, upgrade it or stay on your current platform.

Hardware has been and always will be the goat when it comes to operating system upgrades. Out of the box, Vista supports a smaller range of hardware than even XP did at product launch, but it's funny how quick people forget how much 'better' our lives were when we used Windows 2000, NT 4.0, Windows 98... Yeah, those were the days. Before 150,000 variants on malware and spyware, before every script kiddy had point and click viruses spreading in the wild, and denial of service attacks were little more than a mouse click away. Which is what caused the most hated feature of Vista to come into play, the secutiry system that warns you something is being installed. For the complete novice, this feature alone could be worth the price. I can't tell you how many times I've fixed computers just chock full of adware/malware crap "I didn't know it was installing something..." is the mantra of these users.

In a couple years XP will be relelgated to the same place as Windows 98, and 2000. The mainstream people will look at you funny and tell you that the driver for the new card they want is Vista only, or the game requires Windows Vista. It's called progress, and it's inevitable. For those who think it's the year of the Penguin? Linux will reach desktops the day that games are written on Linux and ported to Windows and not one day sooner. Why? Because games drive the technology of computers (well that and porn, but that's a given).