I like Vista, but it annoys me that it takes up so much place on my hard drive. More than half of it! I tried playing with the visual options and managed to save some disk space but it is still HUGE. Do you know any tricks to save some more space. I don't need any special effects and special visual stuff, can they all be just turned off somehow?

More that half? When I got my Vista machine its 320G hard drive had less than 20G used. And if you are trying to run Vista on a 40G drive, you are underpowered.

It's currently consuming 30 GB our of a 50GB hard drive (my 120 GB hard drive is partitioned into two)

That's not too bad. I have my OS partition taking up 50G on a 100G partition

I have the same as you, 30gigs taken on c: of 50gig and then the rest partitioned into D:
Not much to do really, when you install programs, make sure you install the app or game to d: this may save C: but D: will bulk up

:( It would be high time for Microsoft to develop this and make the visual effects an option to completely erase or let it as a choosable option upon installing. Because this is a ridiculous size for an opsys. I want my XP back :'(

You can turn off all the visual effect stuff, but it is not going to reduce the size of anything, it would just help with a little performance
These days a Usb external drive is key to have

External drive? For a laptop? :D

external drive? for a laptop? :D

Why not? They make some small externals that are very portable.

Don't know where you are located, but I have seen 350gb drives for $100 US

You kidding? That's not expensive at all. I'm located in Hungary. I bet it's three times the price here...