>>Well, I could... Though I'm afraid to try running Vista under MS VPC on my current computer, considering the results I get from the "Vista Upgrade Advisor" which stated that I'd meet the requirements as long as I replaced a *few* components -- essentially everything in the case (only suprise that I got was it didn't outright laugh at me for even trying). I've already seen what it's like with Win2K under MS VPC on my computer -- and it wasn't pretty.
>
>I see workstations priced around $399. that come installed with Vista.
Sure seems the simplest/cheapest "solution" to me.

Looking over the specs of most of these low-priced machines (notably the RAM), they'll probably be OK with WinXP but annoyingly slow in Vista (though perhaps not as slow as my current computer would be running Vista). I did have an opportunity to open up one or two of these low-priced computers and noted that upgrading memory typically means discarding the existing memory modules and replacing with larger-capacity ones (either there's only one slot or all existing slots are filled).

On the upside of this however, without upgrading these low-cost boxes, they'll be so annoyingly slow, nobody will want to use them! That way I *can* dedicate them for testing-only purposes.... Hmm... you might have a point there...

Of course, IIRC some of the display quirks was related to the Aero desktop wasn't it? The lower-priced Vista boxes are usually limited to Vista Basic which lacks the Aero desktop...