What do I lose by not upgrading to Vista?

Finding a lost file in Vista is so much easier. Also, the start menu can let you search for a program to run. It's mouse-free. The Vista Firewall can block incoming, unlike XP's. The list of files will be auto sorted once they're copied. The fail-safe lets you prevent Vista from a fresh install. I've yet to touch the Vista setup disk since the 1st install. After a BSOD, Vista pops up a window of the details once it's loaded. More:

http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/using/windowsvista/t...

http://www.microsoft.com/windows/windows-vista/compare-...

DirectX 10 is the icing on the cake. Move the mouse over the pictures.

http://www.istartedsomething.com/20060817/directx10-fab...

List of DX10 games:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_games_with_DirectX...

http://media.pc.ign.com/media/142/14265687/imgs_1.html

XP 64 can support 4 gigs and beyond. Vista 64 too. XP can't play DX10 games. That or the games will be downgraded to DX9.

I used to think Vista wasn't worth the money. It wasn't in Feb 07. Until SP1. It's more or less the speed of XP SP3.

the other thing you will be losing out on is continued support from microsoft.

Most people are still stuck in the past... they're recalling Vista from a year ago. People read all the articles when a new OS is released... but they never seem to consider that a lot of things can change in a year and don't bother looking for any new information. Post SP1 and with new drivers, Vista will perform as well as XP.

As for 4GB of RAM... that has to do with 64-bit vs. 32-bit rather than Vista vs. XP. You can obtain a copy of XP Pro 64-bit... but if you want to go 64-bit, I recommend Vista over XP.