Marian

Many new college students -- especially those who share computers with other family members at home -- will need to get a new computer for college.

But right now is an awkward time for computer buying because most of the new computers have Windows Vista on them, but much of the world -- including some colleges -- is not yet ready for Vista.

If your child needs to get a new computer for college, how is your family handling this situation?

(Just a suggestion, but perhaps this thread may be more readable if people who believe that no new college student should ever buy a new computer under any circumstances and those who believe that college students should not own computers at all would post those thoughts in a different thread. We have had other threads recently where people who had already decided to do something and who were seeking guidance on how best to accomplish it (ship bicycles to college, buy winter boots out of season, etc.) were inundated with posts from those who think that nobody should ever do the thing in question. The OP's question tends to get lost in threads of that sort.)