I will need new desktop within 6 months. Need advice whether to go with xp or wait for vista.

vista Less Security Problems

I'm of the opposite opinion. Go XP. Vista will have bugs for the first year and all your stuff will work on XP for years. XP is secure enough if you keep it updated.

... just my 1.5 cents worth...

Stay with XP until they release Service Pack 1 for Vista and iron out some of the "Undocumented Features" (Bugs) that always arise in new Mirco$oft products.

Hey Vista is already 2 years late so might as well wait another one for them to get it right ;)

I'm also with Ben & Rick here - When have Microsoft ever released anything without bugs in?

Also, you won't get any extra functionality out of Vista I doubt, so why pay the extra?

So as others said, go with XP. But make sure that whatever you buy will be able to handle Vista. You can still buy a PC in 6 months that will not run Vista so I recommend that you look at the minimum specs from Microsoft for what a machine needs to be (pay special attention to the CPU) and then double it.

New PCs are starting to carry the Vista Capable tag on them. So you can get a machine with that label and be assured it will run Vista.

The real issue is whether you need the extra features that Vista will have. There should be a What's New page for Vista on Microsoft's site to check what will be in it.

If you are getting a 64 bit machine then it's a whole different story. I recommend linux myself like redhat fedora. If you don't want to bother than at least make sure you get the 64 bit version

I would NOT recommend anyone getting other than a 64 bit machine these days unless they are a very casual user on a very limited budget.

If you want to run Vista, then you should get a 64 bit machine. Though Vista will run on a 32 bit machine, it will not be able to take advantage of the 64 bit features.