Vista puts strain on PCs – and users

I have been using Vista Business Pro in a development environment continually for the past year (Vista martyrs are too quick to point finger, 7 April). When asked, I had to advise a friend to purchase a machine with XP installed and use the extra money saved to buy a memory upgrade.

I like Vista in principle a great deal, especially the security, but there are issues. It’s a resource hog, making a blisteringly fast machine run no faster than a 1GHz machine; even simple operations like copying a file are painfully slow; and too much of my existing hardware, even though purchased this year, is incompatible.

I cannot recommend it in its current state despite liking much of what it offers. I would say it’s going to be SP2 before I get any peace of mind.

IT departments be warned. I know what I’m doing but it’s still left me wanting to thump something. Having an operating system that hinders rather than helps is something I’m not very happy about.

Perhaps it’s just me that is having the problems and everyone else will get on with Vista just fine. But I’m using an out-of-the-box machine, preinstalled and pre-tested from a very reputable supplier, and the software I’m using is Microsoft’s own and is not supposed to be problematical.

Microsoft, don’t try to make your operating systems like the Mac. People like me need a certain amount of control over the operating system.

I tried Damn Small Linux the other day. I didn’t know my machine could run that fast. I was just playing, but it reminded me of what the hardware capabilities of my machine are. Say no to bloat.

Dave