I don't understand the Vista hate lately. Why are people having so much trouble.
First of all, I would never recommend upgrading to Vista. Buy a new machine (yes, like you would when getting that latest Mac).
Second of all, it's not 1999. Get at least 2GB worth of RAM. It seems when PC buyers have an option, they opt out for cheapness, and get what they pay for.
Maybe I don't use it in a corporate environment enough. But UI wise it's gorgeous and very intuitive. Especially that vista search, I've been waiting for vistart to be ported to x64 so I can have it here at work.
see, i think with vista, you need at least 2GB of RAM, and a graphics card with dedicated memory is equally important