I suppose it depends.
Vista is an improvement on Windows XP, it comes with better security out of the box with User Access Control (not running as Administrator), makes XP look a little out of date (with the 3d Areo Glass interface) and has the the latest version of Windows Media Player (v11). It comes on nearly all new PC's sold and *will* become the version of Windows everyone will be running over the next few years.
There are some other extra's with Vista depending on what edition you get. See,
http://www.microsoft.com/windows/pro...ns/choose.mspx
and,
http://www.helpwithwindows.com/Windo...h-version.html
Is it worth the price of the upgrade from XP?
I'd say probably not if your PC is older and you have older software, if newer then possibly so but as you can see it doesnt really come with much extra.
System requirements for Windows Vista
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/919183
System requirements for Windows XP
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/314865/en-us
It should be noted that the above 2 links are the minimum just to get it working and you should always try to aim higher to get the best out of Windows. (Windows XP requires far less memory and diskspace)
If going to Vista you may find problems with hardware and drivers if you have some more unusual hardware, some of your software may not work and may require the Vista versions. Take a look at,
http://www.microsoft.com/windows/pro...deadvisor.mspx
for help on if your PC might have any issues.
If you dont mind a bit of a tinker then you could even take a look at free Windows alternatives such as,
http://www.kubuntu.org/
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