Originally Posted by badass
I've said it before and I'll say it again - Vista+old PC=NO
I've said the opposite. Vista Business (x86 and without Aero) on oldish hardware works just as good, if not faster than XP SP2. It was fine on a Sempron laptop with 512mb and a rather crap 4,200rpm drive. I was testing for any software incompatibilities it had at work.
Just let it settle down once it's done the indexing and superfetch detection and you might be surprised.
Agree entirely with most of what's been said though - very little point in splashing out the cash unless you've got new hardware or have a specific need, such as having projects that would benefit from x64 or something (as the XP license isn't transferable to new media, as XP64 is a separate OS to XP, unlike most of the Vista licenses).