Thanks or all your help with XP but i am after help with Vista
Read the top link - you need to upgrade, there is a comparison there between Vista and its replacement
for every link you can find from the xp fanboys (who normally think its clever to knock vista (and xp when that came out), in same way that people who don't understand Linux reckon thats a better desktop) i can find dozens more to show why vista is so much better.
Assuming you are running modern hardware, vista is hard to beat for businesses - and i assume you are as you're running xp pro, so are reliant on active directory (may as well run home if not using AD).
As for non business owners, UAC on its own is enough to recommend vista, as many home users think running with admin rights all the time is some kind of penile extension. Unfortunately, Windows' biggest flaw is all the 3rd party developers out there too stupid to program correctly, hence constantly hitting the UAC prompt, though this is improving now.
Don't knock Vista, simply as you don't know how to use it - and remember its proved reliable and stable even before sp1.
There are other reasons to run XP Pro not just Active Directory - just can't remember what.
Anyway XP works, quite well, no need to replace.
ANyway how do you do full screen DOS in VIsta?
No other reason to run XP Pro other than AD.
As for DOS. Why the hell is anyone still running 16bit crap in this day and age?
XP is obviously fine for you. IIRC, you run an old slowish P4? XP is probably better for that as its quite an old system.
DOS apps - there are still thousands out there - they work and work well - why replace with software which doesn't do the job, we have replaced windows software as late as last year with DOS software and the users got a lot better system, just because it is not using the Windows API does not make it obsolete.
Since we have not yet converted some of our apps to Windows we are still installing DOS apps this week.
So what if some of our competitors are all Windows? so what if their pricing is less flexible, so what if the first run we got 5% less waste on a run (the optimiser core code is identical DOS & Windows).
Like most small software houses our systems evolve, and our first windows apps are already out of date, but will be replaced before some of the DOS sections.
Our windows conversion is taking so long as we are converting the best DOS app in our industry.
Our windows version we feel will be interim until we move to a .net platform.
As our office manager notived at a hotel - they were using what looked and felt like a DOS Clipper application, newish computers but software which does the job