I know that "install win7 instead" isn't very good advice but it's very hard not to say it. I know you must have constraints on why you are going this route but surely if time is worth money then you've already spent enough to have purchased a few Win7 pro copies by now.
There is good reason that during the height of Vista's shelf-life companies were still advertising that you could still get systems preloaded with WinXP. It was a feature that all of the computer shops touted, ie: "You won't be forced to run Vista."
For MS, always better to skip the even numbered releases, I guess.
