It is very unstable, don't download or buy it yet.

You can't buy it yet, and its still a beta, why must you waste peoples time reading it if its pointless.

And what would happen if something goes wrong with Vista? would i need to reinstall XP and all my stuff would be lost?

I want to check it out but im not sure how that works.

I installed windows Vista a month or so ago. It was terrible nothing was compatible and this message continoulsy popped up up demanding the office 2007 cd. After becoming totally fedup with this new windows I decided I wanted my old windows back. Sadly this could only be achieved by formatiing my entire hard disk, then dopinga clean installation of windows XP. Word of advice: Dont install Windows Vista unless you are totally sure you can be bothered running the risk of having to reformat your entire Hard drisk.
To be honest I dont even think the windows Vista was a big step up from XP.

Vista is too little, too late. I saw the the press conference where they announced the switch from "longhorn" to Vista. That in itself was a desperate attempt to distract everyone from the fact that they haven't released anything meaningful since XP - but it did give the next generation O/S concept a 2nd chance in the market place.

Was everyone rewarded for their patience and understanding? LOL...hardly. It's quite true that 80% was recoded...what's scarier is how much was cut and abandoned so they could release SOMETHING! They're just so behind schedule with this product release that they're forced to evolve rather than revolutionize. That's actually not a bad thing really, given their really awful QA system.

Let Vista go to market...I guarantee it will be just like ME (Windows ceMEnt) and die an awful, awful death. But SO many bugs will get shaken out! Then, in the next release - you'll see real changes...rife with new bugs...but 6 months from then I anticipate something wonderful - provided there's affordable hardware to support it!!! They do seem to keep forgetting that people can't keep upgrading their entire computer system every year.

My advice for most of you is to hang onto your present machine and ENJOY IT. Save up all your nickles and pennies until mid year 2008 and THEN buy a whole new machine. I expect by then that they'll have something really keen to show off.