After struggling with the new Visa system for a week, now, I'm feeling more optimistic about it, and I'll tell you why.

I guess it's natural to be a bit frustrated with a radical change...we become comfortable with the status quo, don't we (much like our ambivilant feelings about the changes taking place here at LV), and when you're forced to adopt an operating system that is unfamiliar, and I do mean UNFAMILIAR, you get a double whammy. 

I bought an HP Pavillion equipped with Windows Vista, brought it home, hooked it up, and searched for at least 5 minutes before I found the power button on this contraption, but soon discovered that was nothing compared to finding a way to turn it off!  There is no "start" icon, btw, in its place is a round soccer ball colored like the windows logo.  Well, even I quickly decided it must be the "start" button because it's located in the exact same place, but when I clicked on it...right or left...I could find no "turn off computer" or "restart"... it just wasn't there.   What I saw was a double list... one of programs, and one of management tools or functions, but no apparent way to turn off, or reboot, the computer. Finally, I discovered a very tiny arrow > that opened a submenu listing this option.   Whew!  And this was only the start of it all, with nothing in its proper place, or nonexistant, and, of course many of my old familiar programs were gone, and most too old to be supported by Vista, anyway.

I could probably write a book about the differences between Vista and Windows XP, but end this with my feelings of hope and optimism.  I'm finding new features that I love!  Windows sidebar is a feature to keep your "gadgets" close at hand, and I've chosen the news and weather feature with this information showing and updating continually, seen at a glance.
Another great feature is the tiny preview window that pops up when you hover the cursor over an open window icon on the menu bar.  If you have several windows open at once, such as your mail box, browsers, ect., you can check new activity without actually opening the window.  Neat!

I think I like Vista.