I'll agree with you, Vista is no good.. I’ve noticed their home edition software is more unstable as compared to PRO edition. I only use their PRO (professional) edition operating software and have not experienced any trouble. I will move to Windows 7 PRO, when it is time to replace my PC. I've had it for 5 years and runs just as good as the day I bought it. You might want to consider going that route on your next PC buy.
I also run several very good freeware applications to clear out the junk, spyware, fix registry errors, defrag, get rid of cookies and clear out my cache files every so often. These problems slow down and can cause instability issues/slow startups and do some ohter nasty things to your PC.
I will send links to their sites for you, when I get home.