That's been pretty much my experience. Vista soars on a low-to-medium end late 2008 system (which basically is quad core with 8 Gig). Microsoft was wrong to market Vista widely as an upgrade or allow it to be installed on low-end computers when it came out. They should have taken that "Vista" sticker put on computers much more seriously. This wasn't the case with Windows XP. When I upgraded a computer from Windows 98 to Windows XP in 2001, it actually ran better (which is probably a testament to how bad Windows 98 was). But this does not mean that Vista is worse than XP. For an individual artist or photographer who can afford to spend a few hundred dollars more on a computer (I bought mine last Thanksgiving for around $550 without monitor), Vista is the way to go without a question. If I had tried to "upgrade" my circa 2003 desktop from XP to Vista, I'm sure I would have hated it. Windows 7 sounds like it will be a modest improvement over Vista, but you have to wait to get it. Vista is a huge improvement over XP for the indvidual--I am not a large corporation and don't know or care what their needs are--and it's available now.
I have not encountered any color calibration issues, which are basically handled by the software that comes with your color calibration device.
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