I know it's not. I've got an XP Home machine that never bluescreened. Never.
I've got an XP Pro laptop that never bluescreened, aside from when the video card started getting old/hot/both.
I've got a Vista laptop that has yet to crash on me.

I haven't had stability problems since Win95, really. Win98 was a great gaming OS. XP was rock solid. Vista is good so far. Is it as elegant as a Mac? Nah, but I don't care. I don't spend a lot of time actually looking at windows and menus and crap. I look at the *contents* of windows or I'm gaming fullscreen.

I've never had a problem in XP that wasn't traced back to a hardware issue. We've had lots of problems (compatibility issues in particular, security messes also) with Vista on the pc we got for Alaysha. I refuse to upgrade my pc to Vista as a result; XP is just fine and all I'm missing out on that I care about is DirectX 10. Given how little that's been utilized in games yet, that's not a big issue. I'm hoping Windows 7 becomes the new XP. I wanted to upgrade to Vista until we actually tried using it much.

Yep, every problem I've had related to a BSOD either on my own PC or a client's PC was a result of hardware failure or bad drivers. XP is very stable and if you buy a new PC with Vista on it, it has come a long way since launch. I still don't run Vista full time and probably won't until I upgrade my PC again but the new LG laptop I bought my Mom had it and it runs very nicely. Vista still has a lot of issues I think are due to poor design choices but it's much improved and worth it on a new PC.

Never had a BSOD on XP. Ever.

I actually like Vista.

I think a big factor in the perception of Vista are the Apple ads, the PC guy is the better actor and does a great job playing the part. I don't think the Mojave stuff will factor into Microsofts marketing for Vista but yeah, it goes to show that some people don't play with the OS for themselves (and at the prices their selling it for I can understand the need for a surrogate). Take that 'paper' on DRM that came out last year, half the stuff the guy said you couldn't do you could but because he never used Vista and was just cutting/pasting junk from other sites/papers (and not necessarily in context) he came out causing damage where it wasn't warranted.

That's not to say Vista hasn't caused it's own grief, the whole NBC broadcast flag issue a few months back and the problematic drivers from 3rd parties who didn't think it would ship on time (that time) didn't help it's case.

Every PC in my house that can run Vista OK has it (2+ gig of ram and decent proc) and I've had nary an issue on any of them. I did have to get an updated version of WSFTP Pro 2007 (it was a free download) because the one I had stored from when I purchased it gave the "There are known issues with this program" in Vista, Diablo2 was the other such application but the latest patch got rid of the error after installing it.

One of the biggest factors going forward though is going to be 3rd party hardware support, especially as 64bit comes of age (it's already happening really), peoples scanners/printers/iGrill that they bought a few years ago may not work with newer operating systems if the vendor doesn't choose to release an updated driver for the new OS.

But the move from kernel mode to user mode is a Good Thing™ the last batches of ATI and NVIDIA drivers didn't require a reboot for me.

Do the 64bit drivers require MS Certification or a digital signature?

I've been telling my friends this for years, and they kept swearing that there was no improvement in vista (even post sp1) over xp. A couple of BSOD later due to using beta video drivers and nearly all of them are running vista now.

I built a rig recently and put Vista on it and haven't had any issues since the install.

I'd check out your hardware sir, if it's crashing consistently sounds like maybe a heat issue?

The machine is a Dell laptop that came with it pre-installed. It seems to only crash when suspended or asleep, but never makes it overnight til morning without a crash. The 10hrs is an estimate, based on that.

I've fooled around it with some, without luck thus far. Anyhow, hate to tangent If anyone has any thoughts, we can start up a Tech thread.

Have you put the service tag into support.dell.com? They may have updated drivers, if not then I'd go to the manufacturer's site.

I've been updating through Windows, but not checked back with dell. I'm worried something they have will break my machine When I boot back over to Vista I'll give it a shot, though - thanks for the suggestions! If that doesn't work, I'll start up a tech thread.

For the record, Vista came with my laptop and even after a fresh install and vLite and all the windows install tricks I could think of, Vista was still a bloated piece of crap.

Not a fan of Vista. I think I might actually sell the laptop on eBay because it can't run XP.

I had aseries of blue screens last spring when I built my PC and used vista 64 ultimate. All of it had to do with drivers being promised by manufacturers but not delivered. If day 1 driver support is better, especially on 64 bit systems, 7 is looking to be a good mix of xp's functionality along with the added features of vista while hopefully reducing footprint.
3 months later after yelling at tech support for not understanding there jobs, I got pre-release drivers from Belkin and Asus(onboard sound) that worked perfectly before the official release a week later.

Well, then sounds like a good deal.