Stay away from Microsoft Vista, the new version of the Windows operating system, for as long as you can. A Russian programmer has already found holes in the system that would allow an unscrupulous programmer access to your machine. From today’s New York Times:

SAN FRANCISCO, Dec. 24 — Microsoft is facing an early crisis of confidence in the quality of its Windows Vista operating system as computer security researchers and hackers have begun to find potentially serious flaws in the system that was released to corporate customers late last month.

On Dec. 15, a Russian programmer posted a description of a flaw that makes it possible to increase a user’s privileges on all of the company’s recent operating systems, including Vista. And over the weekend a Silicon Valley computer security firm said it had notified Microsoft that it had also found that flaw, as well as five other vulnerabilities, including one serious error in the software code underlying the company’s new Internet Explorer 7 browser.

Read the rest of the article and then stick with what you’ve got for the time being. Windows Vista is not safe.