I've pretty much had it with Microslopt!! I've had nothing but 'issues' with Vista, and I've finally given up on Outlook. I tried; I really did. I've been with Vista for a couple of years now, or whenever it came out, and the same goes for Outlook. Recently, I downloaded Firefox to get rid of IE 8 (that was the last straw; better late than never) and Thunderbird to deal with issues with Outlook.

Firefox loads dramatically faster: very impressive. I still wonder about Thunderbird, though. I haven't had any issues with it so far, and it does seem faster, but I wanted to ask others who have had more experience with it. What is your review of Thunderbird, and is it the best email client out there?

Good for you. Now make the final step and install Linux

Not sure if Thunderbird is the best mail client, but it can't be worse than outlook. I use Evolution but never tried Evolution on Windows.

I've been considering Linux for some time too. Rumor has it that BOINC runs smoother on Linux and has less issues. I think it even gets better credit results too.

One step at a time. This kind of demon can only be removed with prayer and fasting! :'(

You can always try a Live CD of a Linux distro like Ubuntu, not as fast as running it on your hard disk but lets you try it out without installing anything. I do not play popular computer games but I hear a number run under wine. Here is a reference to
games under wine

Nothing too bad to say about Thunderbird, I prefer other clients under Linux but Thunderbird has lots of interesting extensions and works across many popular operating systems.

The latest Firefox beta is even nicer than the current stable release in my opinion.

Good luck to you.