Upgrading from XP to Vista

I had to purchase a new PC and of course Vista by default and will be installing my programs and transferring data files 3 days from now. New computer has 3 G of memory, dual core etc. Vista Home Premium. This is for small business operations.
Old computer OS is XP home, CD writer, DVD Reader.

My questions are,
Is the data and settings transfer "Easy Transfer" reliable?
Should I purchase the transfer cable or transfer over a small office network?
Can I reliably transfer programs if I purchase the Belkin or PC Tools cable?

Lotta questions but I want to avoid as many problems as possible.
Any other suggestions are welcome
Thanks in advance
JerBru

I would suggest that you backup datafiles / stuff you want to keep onto CD's, and then copy them across manually, that way you can keep the data on CD and only transfer what you need. I'm skeptical about "Easy Transfer" of settings - you may end up with things that you dont need from XP, or bots of the old OS. With any other means of automatically transferring programs/files via cable, too many things have the potential to go wrong, and it'll be slow if you are transferring big files. Much better to either copy to CD OR buy a USB external Hard Drive and use that. With it being for a buisiness the external drive may be a better option - copy stuff accross to the drive, and then to the new machine and burn to DVD.

I've just gone from XP ---> Vista, and did something similar (backed up files/emails etc that I wanted to keep) on my second hard drive. In terms of user settings etc, you are much better off setting them up manually on the new machine, get things the way you like it and then install all your apps.... its less complicated than trying to "import" settings from the old OS.

I hope this helps a wee bit

cheers

Andrew