Audio and peripheral maker Creative publishes a list detailing the status of drivers for each of its many products. Most of their Sound Blaster Internal products already have Vista drivers available. Two of them have only a "beta 2" version of the drivers. Three of their older products say "No Development Planned." Most of their cameras and other peripherals have no Vista-specific drivers available.

On the Advanced Micro Devices site, you can find information about Vista readiness of ATI graphics cards (AMD and ATI merged last year). Most are supported by a Catalyst Vista Software Driver, which is "beta," and are plagued by a long list of published "known issues." It also comes with the following warning: "ATI does NOT recommend installing these drivers in systems used for mission critical operations or where productivity of any kind is a concern."

These two companies are on the leading edge of supporting Vista. Their partial readiness for Vista is symptomatic for the larger companies. Many smaller peripheral makers simply have no Vista support at all.

At least OEMs, Alienware and Polywell, are aggressively pushing XP over Vista, because both say graphics and other drivers for Vista ready for prime time.

Software, such as the security suites you may have already paid for, may not run on Vista, and some require updates that aren't ready yet.