@db cooper - Correct, I do not use Vista! The reason is that (long before Vista arrived), I found that Linux gave a far superior experience to Windows. I gave up on XP in utter frustration after a number of BSODs, hard-drive corruptions and failed boots.

Linux is -
* Faster.
* Uses less memory (the exact amount depends on the distro, of course).
* Much more secure.
* Much more robust.
* Less expensive (free!)
* Much more fun!

As a clincher, to prove the quality of Linux, have a look at this page -
http://www.top500.org/stats/list/31/osfam

That lists the top 500 supercomputers in the world, by operating-system.
Linux' share of the top 500? **85 percent!**

Windows' share?
One percent!

Now, a child is able to realise that you don't put rubbish on supercomputers.... :)

With all the discussion regarding Vista in this column, I think the final word should go to Steve Ballmer (MS CEO) who is reported as advising customers to skip Vista and wait for Windows 7. Read it here: http://blogs.computerworld.com/ballmer_says_skip_vista

In response to Anaru

"The fact it consumes such a huge chunk of the system resources leaves me boggled. Is Vista great? No, it isn't in my opinion. Will I continue to use it? Yes, on my personal laptop, I would go insane using it for anything other than internet browsing!"

Yes it uses more resources, but isnt that not to be expected with a new operating system? Its like saying XP is horrible because it uses more resources than MS DOS.

Vista loads a lot of your RAM with programs you are likely to use, meaning they start up quicker. Why not use it if its there?

Personally my experience with Windows Vista has been more annoying than anything else. As a very experienced computer user capable of doing pretty much anything from a hardware or software perspective, it really feels like Vista "thinks" that you're an idiot. The fact it consumes such a huge chunk of the system resources leaves me boggled. Is Vista great? No, it isn't in my opinion. Will I continue to use it? Yes, on my personal laptop, I would go insane using it for anything other than internet browsing!

I'll bet my shirt, and it's quite a nice one, that poster Andy does not actually use Vista. Speaking from personal experience as a long time Vista user, I can report that I have had no problems at all with Vista, and find it to be a stable, easy to use operating system - certainly Microsoft's best yet. I had to help someone with an XP machine the other day, and was surprised at just how much better Vista is. Once again, I suspect the resistance-to-change brigade who bemoan the demise of XP support have never actually used Vista. Sure, being a largely new architecture, Vista suffered a bit at the beginning from lack of driver support, but those days are long gone. Gosh, even Creative have finally provided functional Vista drivers. So confident was I with the current state of Vista drivers, that I recently switched over to the 64 bit edition of Vista, and guess what, I had not a single problem with the installation or the drivers for my hardware.

Id love to comment on a few of these things. I believe this is a very biased opinion.

"If a computer expert can have these kinds of problems with a Windows release and is unable to resolve them, then it doesn’t say much for your average end-user."

I have installed windows vista on multiple computers and the only time i have had an issue was faulty hardware.

I adopted vista very earily on and did not have any trouble solving my driver issues. Though i am computer savy.

"Just to make sure I wasn’t having some sort of hardware issue, I swapped out the SATA hard disk with two of the same model and installed both Windows XP 2005 MCE rollup 2 and Ubuntu Gutsy 64-Bit without any issues at all."

One of the most common hardware issues with a PC is the hard disk, you just swapped that out. As i said above the only issues i have had was with faulty hardware.

"... its a bizarre thing when the latest consumer version of Windows is less compatible with modern hardware than either Linux or the previous version of Windows, one year after its release."

I have never had a problem with modern hardware and i am a computer enthusiast. I have a very modern PC. In fact so modern that until recently it did not work by default on linux, only Vista. Ironic isnt it.

Also dont forget, if it is a driver issue it could well be the maker of your card, it may not be windows.

While im here let me commment on linux.

I being a computer savy person have installed linux multiple times and its not so problem free itself.

The first time i went to install linux, i got a black screen, i couldnt run it. Why? My graphics card was not yet supported. Were already off to a great start as you can see.

Knowing that my graphics card is quite new I waited quite a while for the next distribution of linux hoping this would solve the issue and it worked (Ive never had this issue with windows).

But the funs not over yet! I now need to install the latest nvidia graphics driver for linux. I quickly download the driver and start to wonder what to do next. After loooking around for a while i finally find a tutorial.

All i have to do is follow this tutorial: http://www.nvnews.net/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=72490

Tell me if you understand half of that because i sure dont.

Try giving that to your average computer user, theyll go running back to windows in a snap!

I think a lot of people are getting the wrong impression about vista just because they dont understand it yet or just need to let off some steem.

Vista is a great operating system with lots of good changes. It has been made more user friendly and is definitly more intuitive. I go into linux now and again but just for a play, its more of a toy to me rather than a fully fledged OS.

Bottom Line:
Windows Vista is under rated. Too much bad publicity has givin it a bad impression.

Start seeing windows vista for what it is, an upgrade not a level OS with XP with more problems.

I couldn't disagree more with barrelscraper.

People are paying big bucks for Vista. Given that, there is an expectation that the product should be excellent. It isn't - it is junk.
As for the "sample of one", that is nonsense. Every tech-writer worth their salt has given Vista the thumbs-down, not to mention countless ordinary users. Why else would MS have an ad campaign to try to convince people that "Vista is great"....?

As for comparing Windows and Linux installs - how many Windows installs has barrelcraper done? I must have done close to a dozen if not more. All were done out of necessity, due to Windows nuking my hard-drive. About *half* of them did not succeed, with Windows BSODing.

On the Linux front, I've done about 20 or so (I'm a real distro-junkie). All were done by my choice (not because Linux had nuked my drive), and all were successful.

I've also installed FreeBSD and OpenBSD about six times each, with no problems at all.

Vista is an overpriced, poorly-secure, unstable, bloated, poor-quality steaming pile of dreck, and that's being kind to it... :)

I have used Vista since May and it has not given me one major problem. Only my webcam doesn't work with Vista - everything else I have is fine. Including wireless adapters.

A self-selected sample of one proves what?

Seems like scraping the barrel but I suppose saying bad things about Vista still earns you kudos with some audiences.

I think if we are honest with ourselves we'd remember how many times Windows installs have succeeded compared to the Linux ones ..... ! :-)

I had a weird experience with Vista. I'd just upgraded the motherboard, CPU, hard drive and ram of my desktop, so took the opportunity to move to vista at same time. I booted the machine with the vista install discs in the CD rom and the machine happily started the install process reading from the CD rom. Things tuned south when it suddenly decided it didn't know anything about the CD rom it was happily booting from and needed a CD driver. Vista refused to read any more from the CD rom until it got the right driver. Which meant I couldn't give it the driver supplied on a CD when the CD rom drive was purchased becuase it refused to continue to read from it.

It was the most bizarre thing I've come across.