I have Windows Vista Home Premium at home sitting in it's box not doing anything. Now I would love to install in on my laptop but am wondering will my programs work in vista and is vista stable? I have used vista before and I found that I could not use nero 6 in it and I do not want to pay for it again so what can I do about that?

Windows XP Pro or Vista Home Premium for me?

Run the Windows Vista Upgrade Advisor. Its available free from Microsoft.com. Just do a search for it.

It'll tell you which drivers and programs are compatible with Vista.

Good luck!

With new releases of Windows operating systems, it does not pay to be on the cutting edge. I would suggest your waiting at least until MS issues its first service pack for Vista.
Regards,
John

If you're waiting for the first service pack (Codename: FIJI), you won't be waiting long. I've heard that Microsoft is looking at releasing a service pack either Q4 2007 or Q1 2008.

More info: VistaSP1.net

That pretty much sums it up...

I also consider myself cutting edge...my retail box of Vista Home P. is on the shelf, and I have been tempted many times to give up XP and go to Vista. I managed to find all applicable Vista drivers for my system as well as the software. However, after doing a lot of thinking, I'm sticking with my XP installation at least until the summer.

In the meantime, it won't hurt to keep up on newsreports and scan the BC Vista forum for items of interest, or just read some of the good Vista Tutorials that cover the new features.
As with most new versions of Windows, there are bound to be interface problems with other applications. For example, some ISPs are not (yet) Vista-compatible.
Incidentally, most companies are taking a "wait and see" attitude whilst they test Vista.
Regards,
John

Nero has recently released an update to help with the compatibility problems. That's sorta the price that we pay for being on the cutting edge of technology - some stuff just doesn't want to play nicely!

I think Nero7 w/ the update is the only version supported for Vista.

Personally I'd hold off Vista for a year or so. There isn't really any compelling reason to upgrade from XP aside from the extra eyecandy, and it isn't worth it for the potential compatibility problems you're likely to run into.

If you're really gung-ho about adopting it early you could set up a dual boot with it and XP. I have a copy of Ultimate that I'm pretty much not going to even bother with until DX10 games start coming out to where you must have Vista to play.

Vista is staying in it's box! I had it installed on my last computer I sold to work with it and it has a lot of issues Microsoft have to fix. Thanks guys for your input.

FWIW - I've got Vista Ultimate installed on my old Toshiba M45 laptop with 1 gB of RAM and it works well (a bit slow for videos tho'). But then again, I only use a few apps and know how to force them to play nice with Vista - so the issues for me are minimal (no ITunes and no Nero especially).

I haven't had many problems, legacy programs (apps from more than five years ago) don't play nice but I can get them to work. Drivers, specifically video drivers, can be problematic. At least Creative Labs released drivers for my X-FI card.

Just a little note, Microsoft has released a compatibility update, if you are having problems running certain programs, consider downloading it through Windows Update. More information can be found here.