Sorry for the double post and for posting when saying I would not. But I feelt obligated to try and help tye.
Tye, this entire post is for you.
As someone above wrote, it can be an good idé to backup the stuff you want to keep on an extern hard drive or burn it to an cd or dvd. The you can always do an virus scan too, just be be sure no ugly stuff is among that material.
Tye, you can always check the drivers. They may not be very friendly with your hardware for some reason, and in that case it may be an good idé to try and update them.
You can try and reinstall vista, if you haven´t already. But before this, make sure everything you want to keep and everything that you need is backed up somewhere. It would be a pain to loose something important.
One other thing you can try is to go back to an previus version of windows, like xp or 2000. Alternatly, you can dual boot them. They may be more compatible with your system. In other cases, you can always try with an non windows os.
If you want to try linux, ubuntu is an good place to start. It´s not that hard to use. Otherwise, if you don´t want linux, there are always FreeBSD, Solaris and other oses to choose from. ReactOS could also be something to try, just note that it´s still an beta.
However, if you want to be sure you don´t make an mistake and choose an os you wouldn´t like, then there exist Virtual Box. It will allow you to test several oses on an virtual machine. This will make sure you cannot screw with your main system, but still try an os. Not that hard at all to use.
Anyway, I wish you goodluck. Hope your problems will be solved.
EDIT:
Quote: "I was kidding."
Lol, ok. I sometimes have hard to understand jokes
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Darknes, you haunt me. If I give in, I would be an monster beyond imagining. Light, you guide me. Thanks to you, I see past the nothingness. Life, I choose to live in the light.