Just baught a compaq laptop with vista...

And, for some reason, HP thought it was a great idea to put a whole crapload of "trial software" and games, and yahoo toolbar, and a bunch of other "setup your computer" programs, that apparently all need updates.

NOw that they've ruined my clean version of VISTA, I have no freakin idea what i can get rid of, and what I can't.  Anybody else had a simmilar problem?

Vista for gaming, XP for serious work, linux for serious work involving the gnu guys (texinfo and whatnot). There isn't much you can do on linux that you can't do on xp. There is quite a lot you can do on xp that you can't do on linux. Editing video and creating music are my main hassles.