I tried to upgrade my XP SP2 installation to Vista RTM three times. Each time the installation made it through all the way to the final reboot when it died with a BSOD. This despite Microsoft's Upgrade Advisor giving the green light. After the third failure, I ran Dell's own Upgrade Advisor and learned that my BIOS may not support all the features of Vista. The last BIOS update for my Dell XPS was released in 2004 and because I can't even boot in Safe Mode where only the basic drivers are loaded, the BIOS is the likely culprit.

Should I blame Dell or Intel, the motherboard maker, for not providing continuing support for their hardware? Looks like I'll have to buy a new PC to run Vista. I could punish both Dell and Intel by buying AMD from Gateway...