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I heard that it's better to buy a PC from a retailer (such as Best Buy, Dell, or Gateway for example) with the OS allready installed as oposed to buying a PC with a clean HD and installing the OS yourself. True? Specifically speaking of Vista.

Well that is if you want to build your own PC and not buy a compaq, Dell, Gateway ect... When you build your own system then you have to buy a spate copy of XP or Vista and install it your self. As for getting a manufactured PC the one thing that I hate the most is that they include bloat ware. Any time that you buy a PC from Best Buy or CC, Frys, ect.. the manufactures will put on a bunch of apps that are not necessary at all, Office Trial 90 days, Norton AV for 30 days ect...

Yeah, bloatware is a pain. But I guess what I was really getting at with my question was that I heard that when the manufacturer does the install, the OS it better intergrated with the hardware and other software than a self install. I have built my own systems before, but I got tired of being my own warrenty when something happened, so I got something from BestBuy. Also, I always seemed to have problems with the PC I put together. I'm sure it was a bad combo of hardware. But I'm getting the urge to build again so this is why I'm asking.

Yes all this is true but if you buy 1 of their preassembled systems you get what they want you to have and nothing more, if you pick out what you want then the price increase gets ridiculous. The major problem people run into with installing their own software and OS is there is an order to what you install and how you install it. Now as to how and what order most people will say bull***t and they will have problems later down the road and blame it on bad componets, when in fact they have failed to update properly the software, drivers or OS.

if you install the OS and drivers properly, there will be no difference. moreover, you don't have to tolerate the bloatware. but if you are not 100 percent sure you can handle it, it is better to buy a pc with pre installed os . it is easier to uninstall the bloatware than to install a new OS.

nowadays,the pc with OS installed will not come with a copy of dvd, right? 

I will choose DIY :) Because the OS installed by manufacturer often don’t have a good partition structure. They usually leave a huge size for partition C, which I really do not like. The system will slow down, if there are too many files in system partition. Therefore, I never put any unnecessary things in system partition. My common way is to install software into other partitions, so the huge size in Partition C will be wasted.
For me, installation and configuration of the OS and drivers are very simple issues, so I can handle it my self.