You just dont know how to optimized it for your own purpose. Yes, vista needs alot of attention to be successfull, and if you don't know how to use it / have the patience to customize it, dont whine, and dont buy vista. Stick to XP and leave the peoples who are happy with vista alone.

I just think whining about vista is useless, especially since W7 will be realsed not long enough. Vista is indeed a fail project, and W7 will be everything Vista isn't. Just wait a little bit and enjoy an extremely decent windows (W7).

Hey Deionychus, just a supporting thought to DrJBHL's comment on dualboot. I have it set up on my desktop. It works great and conveniently. I use XP PRO as my primary but I use VISTA to record  TV shows and just to keep myself on top of new OSs. Try it

"7) File copy is even slower, despite SP1 improvements"

Too true !   I use Teracopy insted

XP really did revolutionize. On the other hand, I've heard 7 is a slimline version of windows (got bits missing)

Seconded!  I too miss your wit and humour around the threads and hope that you'll hang with us some more.

Not a plug for Microsoft, but i have been using their stuff since DOS 3.3 anyway, I find Vista the best they have done, some customization needed, (xp did too) but i found vista takes less time to install, easier to install, and faster to install than xp, after a fomat yesterday and reinstall, the only thing vista didnt find were drivers for my Intel X58 Chipset and Ethernet, other than that everything was up to date, weird one though, maybe i am a little biased with Vista as i have been using it since the day after it came out, and kind of know my way around it, but it just runs fantastic on my new machine. then again i read horror stories from people too,

WOM...I agree. I on't know if I'll go over to W7 altho I suspect I will. XP and Vista have been good to me. I will say though, M$ has disappointed me several times as well. Your cautious approach and less "investment" in the OS makes a good deal of sense.

Expectations cause disappointment in most cases:

"'Blessed is the man who expects nothing, for he shall never be disappointed' was the ninth beatitude."-Alexander Pope

If you bought a new computer recently, you didn't have a choice.  The only computers that come pre-installed with XP now are netbooks, which by the way, are a piece of crap!  The netbooks i've seen only run XP Home (not Pro.) I would so much rather have a newer computer with Vista installed on it than a netbook with XP. (because of hardware specs.)

If you want a high-performance XP machine, Format the hard drive, and perform a fresh installation of XP Pro.  If you don't have an XP Pro disk, I don't know what to tell you.  Microsoft doesn't support or sell XP Pro anymore.  You could always just wait for Windows 7.

I personally like Vista, mostly because of the appearance, not performance.  I agree that Vista takes forever on start-up.  It takes three freakin' minutes after the desktop appears to load Aero every time!  But I still love the scalable icon sizes in Explorer.

I have both XP & Vista installed, so I can get eye-candy on one OS, and high-performance on the other.

Your Comment | My Comment

1) I hate the start menu - what a pig to use | I disagree...I love the new Search box in the Start menu.

2) That folder mouseover drives me nuts | Live Folders? They only did it as a graphics feature.

3) It likes to randomly reset folder views to pictures, no matter how many times I set it to files | Most average joe users perfer the thumbnails over all other views. (MS tends to listen to the n00bs more...)

4) IconX doesn't work | I would love to highlight my icon titles like you can in OS X again...

5) I need a new printer due to lack of drivers, despite my printer being hardly used | Check the manufacturer's website again...A LOT of companies just updated their drivers to Vista not too long ago...

6) Games are slower, much slower... | How old are the games?

7) File copy is even slower, despite SP1 improvements | File copy speed could be a bit faster...Probably gonna happen in SP2.

8) Some menus take ages to start up first time, I can hear Vista accessing the disk... | So can I. But the hard drive is a tad quieter than XP.

9) Vista insists on eating up 10-12Gb of extra disk space thanks to storing all versions of files, dlls etc for compatibility | These backups have prevented me from BSOD-ing for over a year. That was impossible on XP!

10) I bought Vista so I could moderate Vista skins/dreams etc. I don't do that anymore. | But you do know that there are other ways to skin Vista, right? Yes, WB is a fantastic skinning format. However, even I sometimes will use a .msstyles for Vista when I'm going for something simple.

In my opinion, Vista has a few hiccups still, but overall it has become a fantastic OS.

But we'll just have to wait and see for 7....

The problem I have is a simple one: I look at my screen now and I see no visual difference between Vista and XP.

If you are a skinner, like me, you can make either XP or Vista look however you want. It's those little things underneath which make all the difference; the convenience, the ease of use, not having to use work arounds.

For the record, I've never had a BSOD in XP...

As for my printer, the manufacturers recommendation is to buy a new printer...

The best way of copying files I have found is to use the disk from an old copy of Drive Image 7.0 (won't install in Vista) to boot into DOS. From there, the file copy in DI 7 is about 20 times faster than Vista... And that is not a hyperbole.

You're most welcome, mate, but then you're a great bloke to have around so it goes without saying that we miss you. However, you need to take care of that which is important, we understand this and will still be here when you're ready to return proper.

takes the fun out of it ... very bloody and painful would be more satisfying.

I like that Fuzzy ... is that patented? If not, may I use it?

Oh no, time to beat up on Vista or take the piss out of it as you British guys like to say? 

About the only thing that really bugs me about Vista is how it changes file prperties no matter how many times I set them to my preferences. If I set it to view in large icons, I occasionally return to find medium icons or detailed view.