can anyone tell me what windows vista is?

here's an excerpt from wikipedia: Windows Vista is the latest release of Microsoft Windows, a line of graphical operating systems used on personal computers, including home and business desktops. Before its announcement on July 22, 2005, Vista was known by its codename Longhorn.[1] On November 8, 2006, Windows Vista development was completed and released to manufacturing. Over the next two months it was released to MSDN, TechNet Plus and TechNet Direct subscribers, computer hardware and software manufacturers and volume license customers. On January 30, 2007, it was released worldwide to the general public,[2] and is available for purchase and downloading from Microsoft's web site.[3] These release dates come more than five years after the release of its predecessor, Windows XP, making it the longest time span between two releases of Windows. if you want to read more here's the link: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windows_Vista hope this helps!

Windows Vista (formerly code named Longhorn) is the next evolution of Microsoft's operating system. Vista offers an advancement in reliability, security, ease of deployment, performance and manageability over Windows XP. As of July 30, 2005 Windows Vista is in the beta 1 phase and is expected to be released late in 2006. Some of the Windows Vista features include the following: Detects hardware problems before they occur, which is designed to reduce the frequency of incidents in which applications stop responding or the PC needs to be restarted. Windows Vista security features protect against the latest generation of threats, such as worms, viruses and spyware. If an attacker manages to compromise a computer, Windows Vista limits the damage. Security features protect against the latest generation of threats, such as worms, viruses and spyware. If an attacker manages to compromise a computer, Windows Vista limits the damage. Faster start-up time and low power consumption of the new sleep state. In many cases, Windows Vista is noticeably more responsive than Windows XP on identical hardware. Windows Vista simplifies and centralizes desktop configuration management, reducing the cost of keeping systems updated.

ms vista is the latest to be released by microsoft..ehat we call as an operating system or o.s...well as corrctly said it"rumours"..that syas it all...vista is a higl demading o.s that reqiures a high permoging p.c to support it...and dont worry itcant replae x.p within the next 2 yrs at leat unless evenry one on this eatrth buts a new p.c....

windows vista is next to xp it uses more ram processor but great grafix media center

Don't bother buying Vista, it's slower than XP and the main thing different is it's "cool" look. But you can get that in XP, too buy using the XP-Vista transformation pack.