Douglas, please explain the "black screen of death" a bit more. I skipped Vista because I knew it had lots of issues, so I have no real knowledge of the OS.

But could it simply be a case of the laptop screen going to sleep? Many do to conserve battery power. Hence the simple fix would be to not allow sleep mode.

edit
Here's actually a video of what I'm talking about...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1z1jeA7pPvo

and you should see more videos relating to the issue




If writing ever becomes work I think I'm going to have to stop