Well, my theory is that the problems are caused by the fact that Vista uses 3D acceleration for its Aero Glass UI. Graphics drivers almost never crash in 2D mod

Well, my theory is that the problems are caused by the fact that Vista uses 3D acceleration for its Aero Glass UI. Graphics drivers almost never crash in 2D mode in my experience, on both WinXP and Linux. 3D mode tends to be much less robust. Having programmed 3D graphics hardware on the "down to the metal" level in game consoles, I'm not that surprised. GPUs hare hugely complex and tend to have a significant amount of hardware bugs or quirks that can make the developer's life really hard. By the way, I don't use Vista on any of my systems (yet) so I'm just assuming that the reports of instability are accurate.