lots of computers dont come with os disks anymore... i dont understand why no one see's that this is a common occurance,
Yes it is very common. You're right. Sometimes as in the case of hp, you must pay a nominal fee 15-20 usd to have them send you a new OS disk. My friend has just been forced to order one. Also I am a long time user of dell products and they often send the OS disks but not of whatever other software you might have ordered installed. You have to request them specifically.
Of course very very few consumers would actually think to ask if the disks were coming before we order because we tend to just assume that when we buy software that they will actually provide us with the cds.
They know that after a period of time you will need them, but why would they want to send you something if they can possibly avoid it? Think about it. They are trying to get as much money as they possibly can. If they can save pennies on shipping or cd manufacturing then they multiply that over thousands. It is just another way to get nickle and dimed by "the man".

So meanwhile you get tied up on the phone explaining your situation to some customer service rep, then you might have to pay a small fee, and definitely will wait a few days or a few weeks.
[OT]
but anyway, why did you use VISTA in first place?
There are plenty of reasons to choose Vista over XP, especially if you like a kernal that uses 1.5 gig RAM(vista) as opposed to 500 meg RAM(XP). Or if you like having 13.7 gigs of harddrive being used up(vista) as opposed to 1.4 gigs used by XP. I personally hate resource hogs so Vista is not on my list. Especially considering that many more programs run faster and more efficiently on XP, that dont even run on Vista. Example being: visual c++ 6.0 dont run on vista, while visual studio 2008 does. BUT BOTH visual studio 2008 AND visual C++ 6.0 run on XP.
Then, if you look past all of that the only way I could tolerate vista is if:
1)disable User account control immediately
2)Get rid of all that aero stuff
3)Tune down the OS as much as possible for performance
People that use the excuse that because computers are faster and have more storage nowadays then we can more easily run bloated hogs like vista. Thats like saying that because I have a million dollars that I want to pay too much for things. No. I still expect performance from my OS. Even if I have a fast processor.
Also what about "driver incompatibilities", are you aware of these? I tried to install Norton system works 2003 on a vista sytstem, in the middle of install the installer aborted and threw a "driver incompatibility error". Then the computer quit with a blue screen of death. When I reboot, the same program tried to install, and ran onto the same error. The only thing I could do was comb the whole system for tracks of the incompatible program, the syatem still never ran right. I had to reformat.
And I dont recall ever having a bsod on an XP system.
[end rant]
But Linux is even more stable than XP.