[JezzDrums]

Macs are the best for pro tools but they are pretty much double the price of a windows os lap top.

I had this issue last week as I went through the exact same situation you. I bought my new lap top without looking at the digidesign site and realising that it says that vista business and ultimate are supported. It also says other versions of vista are not tested.

My new lap top is a toshiba. 2.0 ghz processor, 4g ram and 320 hard drive. I also really wanted pro tools, and now that I have bought it I am slo glad that I did. I asked the guy in the shop about pro tools and vista and he said he had no issues with pro tools and 32 bit vista premium.

I have installed pro tools le 8 and it has been running fairly smoothly. Some occasional errors come up about the system trying to hold off interruptions for too long but I think that has somthing to do with my buffer size, since I have it set at two which was the default, think it uses more power or something (im not too computer minded either).

Anyway I have not really had any problems that have made me wish that I had never bought my new compuer or pro tools. I am lovin pro tools but that also comes down to personal preferance. I looked at cubase on a DAW before and found the interface much more confusing. Yet others are the other way round so all this is just my opinion.

I would say though that if you had the money, a mac would be awesome.
Good luck!!