I think I’ll be migrating more towards the Black XP warez versions, as I like the Vista-style interface but would prefer an XP OS for stability and reliability.

I have Vista Business on an HP laptop.

Was having about 3 crashes a day, so upgraded to 2 GB of RAM, which bought the crashes down to about once every 3 days.

It’s ridiculous though. There is no common crash method, it last happened when pressing Ctrl+b to bold a cell in Excel. Though it also happens when opening explorer occasionally and the worst is when it happens when saving a file. The explorer process in task manager is particularly unstable.

The type of crash is horrible too. Everything just stops including (after a while) the mouse. I have left the machine for 2 hours when this happened (thinking it might be doing something in the background) but on return found it exactly the same as when I had left it.

I think Microsoft should really test their products before they release them. It sounds like people were having these problems in their Beta releases but Microsoft did little to fix them. Instead they should have pushed back the release date and actually released a stabel OS. As a software developer I know the success of a product is the quality of the product multiplied by it’s acceptance. Microsoft got the acceptance right, pity they couldn’t make a quality product.

The issue is that Vista has heavy overhead. Take a look at its processing and chunking protocols. They are woefully inefficient. The way it directs tasks is disaster waiting to happen. One small problem happens in my Skype IE add-on and it cascades throughout the system. Word, Outlook, Stata — they all go down for the count. Then try reopening them and see the “memory sticking” that happens. Starting up IE has resulting in half hour-long hangs. It kind of just sits there with the cursor spinning, the screen resolution jumping around, and then the screen going black. It is clear that Vista isn’t actually doing anything.

Another problem is that the Task Manager is feeble in Vista. So many processes are protected that disruptive apps can run with impunity. You can’t end that stupid Windows Media Player updater. Why is that so essential? Sometimes the Task Manager won’t even open. The spinning cursor just reappears.

Then there are the 15 minute cold boots ad the 5 minute sleep/wake-up ordeals composed of Vista fighting with its own drivers to get going. My contention is that this further proof that Vista is always on the verge of crashing programs. It just needs a push.

I hate to say this as someone who hates the Jobs cult, but Macs have been quite appealing ever since Vista appeared.

I’m growing very frustrated with Vista - and I’m hoping that once we hit service pack 2, it’ll be as rock solid as XP is today.