Vista and dell

[Zirax]

Well my grandad has finally taken the plunge and got himself a laptop. The trouble is he hasn't spoken to me and has gone for the cheapest dell machine with Vista. It should do everything he could ever want.

However I haven't buggered about with Vista and really he needs a machine locked down nicely. This is for when he is learning to use a machine. To give you an idea the last pc he had was for his business (windows 3.1) that the secretary used to use..... he never touched it.

Now the question I have is how hard is it to lock down vista. Mainly with regards to popups/AV some kind of firewall? (I know visa comes with a kind of firewall). Being the first time he has used a pc he is having lots of problems and really needs support. The trouble is the niggles with vista is aggrevating them.

So should I ditch vista in this case and give him a locked down xp install?