If you don't plan to jump on upgrading to Windows Vista right away, you've come to the right place. Our top story for this week is Fred Langa's terrific article showing you how to completely rebuild, repair, or refresh an existing XP installation without losing data--and without having to reinstall user software, reformat, or otherwise change or destroy your PC's setup.If your XP PC is acting up, Fred shows you how you can reinstall XP while leaving your user accounts, names, and passwords intact--and in only a smidgen of the time a complete reinstall would take.

This article is only the latest in a series about ways to solve common XP problems. Other titles include "XP's Little-Known 'Rebuild' Command"; "The OS Inside The OS"; "How To Save An Hour (Or More) On XP Installs"; and "XP On Your Thumb Drive." All of them have been pretty popular.

What does all this interest in XP mean? My guess is that it portends that businesses intend to stick to XP for a significant amount of time. A case in point: Earlier this month an InformationWeek-affiliate Web site, Small Business Pipeline, ran a poll asking small businesses if they intended to upgrade to Vista when it was finally released.

Overwhelmingly, respondents said they intended to wait. Only 16% said they would definitely be upgrading to Vista. A whopping 73% said they were going to stick with what they had until Vista was proven stable. (Eleven percent said they hadn't yet decided.)

These numbers apply to small businesses only, which obviously have different needs--and vastly more limited resources--than larger enterprises. Yet according to analysts, even the biggest companies will probably delay implementation. Some, like Gartner, which released a report in early May, even predict that the majority of them will wait as long as 12 to 18 months after Vista's release to upgrade from XP. Indeed, the Yankee Group recommends waiting to install Vista until 2008. The reason? Vista's management tools won't have fully matured until then, making implementation a rocky proposition.

And all evidence is that most PC buyers--businesses and consumers alike--won't be interested in installing Vista until they purchase new PCs. So until the current installed base of PCs is replaced, Vista adoption will be very sluggish. Microsoft itself says that with previous Windows operating systems, less than 10% switched to the new operating systems on existing machines.

What do you think? Is your organization planning to upgrade to Vista once it becomes available? Or do you plan to wait a significant amount of time--12 to 18 months--before making the switch? Give us your feedback.