I am looking to buy a new laptop and you can hardly find one that doesn't have Vista installed, but I hear so many bad things about it. What can I buy that still would have XP?

the answer is by aresee :
If you are buying a new laptop you will not have any problems with Vista. The people who complain are most likely those who have installed Vista onto an older computer which does not have enough 'guts' to run it, or perhaps those who do not have the patience to get to know how to use a new system properly. Thirdly perhaps they rushed to get it onto their computers when it had first come out, like wanting to be the first and boast about it, but as we all know, you wait quite a few months before getting anything new for all the teething troubles and bugs to be ironed out.

There is absolutely nothing wrong with Vista. It has much better security and all round is great improvement.