Compatibility Question

[gran_guitarra]

All of that and more is the reason why most of my friends have done the following:

Get a Mac with dual OS, then install XP. You can use all of your school/work things in Mac and keep the games in XP. That means that you never need both OS open at once.
That's what I'm gonna do as soon as the new Mac OS comes out. My parents have like seven licenses for XP, so that's not a problem, and the comp I'm gonna get is relatively cheap and very good (much better than my six year old one, which can run CnC3 and MEd 2 on medium to low settings, and DoW DC on medium to high settings).

Basically Microsoft is trying to milk evreyone for money. How? Make DX 10 Vista only, because that way you need to upgrade to their incredibly horrible OS to use any game, and make it incompatible with nearly all the old software.
At least apple tries to give you something good in exchange for their overpriced crap (and let's face it everything we buy anywhere is overpriced crap).

Every friend of mine who has done what I suggested thinks its great and love their Macs.

[Tellos Athenaios]

RTW, EB etc. run fine on Vista. I even managed to get a game going on Vista which was designed for Windows95 - and that would simply refuse to work with XP.

Vista just sucks at legacy hardware, most of it is hardly compatible with Vista, or not at all due to it being hardy compatible with XP too. I haven't yet experienced anything particular random on my PC, and neither do I feel that XP outperforms Vista very much.

What I do like about Vista:
1) The transparent bars: it's much easier on the eyes than the stuff you'd had previously. Granted, it takes some time to get used to - but it is much more of a background now.
2) The improved search function: I hardly ever open Windows Explorer in a separate window to find some file. This is much faster, and way more convenient.
3) The much improved function to terminate non-responding programs.
4) The much improved diagnose & repair function. Though the only time I had to use it, it came up with some pretty good ideas as well. Sadly, none of them applied - but the essence is there: a much more dynamic help database. Which is something XP did not have: it still required you to know what help you needed before you could ask for it. (And frankly: if I know what kind of help I need, I don't quite need an Index-search function and a help database - do I?)

What I don't like about it:
1) The incompatibility with most hardware such as Bluethooth adapters etc.
2) The wretched screens you see before / during logging on to your PC; shutting your PC down; adjusting certain settings that typically require Control Panel-ish windows.

@MAA The random things you experience are most likely caused by certain schedules: if you dare to go into the vast maze of "Tasks & Schedules & Updates & Security checks" you can switch them all off.

[MarcusAureliusAntoninus]

You know, I actually tried to turn off some pointless stuff that I knew was slowing things down. Vista wouldn't let me.

[Tellos Athenaios]

Have you turned the UAC off? Stupid one: but did you grant yourself admin privileges?

[stupac]

You may also want to note a change in Program Files. When a program writes changes to a file in Program Files it gets stored in a virtual location so it doesn't overwrite the original. So essential stuff like saved games and map.rwm will be stored there. You can find the virtual Program Files in c:\users\(your username)\appdata\local\virtualstore\program files. You will need to be able to see hidden files and folders in order to view these. May be good to know if you need to ever delete map.rwm or backup saves. I've been running EB on vista though since its commercial release and had no problems. Vista certainly has its downsides, and apart from future compatibility and a little eye candy it really provides no real advantage to saavy computer users that I can see. But for folks that aren't so security conscious, vista is a little more idiot proof.

Of course when I'm not playing EB, Ubuntu Linux is my choice of OS. If only I could run RTW with wine.