The 27% Solution: Am I able to experience the wow once again?

I never gave Windows Vista a fair shot when it was shiny and new, so I've been wanting to give it another try for a while now.
This morning, I tried to install it on one of my PCs, the specs of which are listed in my profile. I was able to launch setup and select a language, keyboard layout, time zone etc just fine. But when it came to installing the OS to my desired partition, the progress bar got stuck at 27% for about 15 minutes and refused to move at all. The entire machine wasn't frozen, just the installation progress bar.
Is this a normal thing for Vista that can just be fixed with more patience, or is my hardware too new for the OS?
I've tried going down the virtual machine route as well with VMWare, but it did not go down well at all! The audio was terrible, and the VM was extremely laggy and sluggish.

 

Check if you meet Recommended Requierements and you are installing a Windows Vista SP2 ISO