With more and more people using Windows Vista now, I am finding a wide range of opinions coming my way. Some love it, and actually use their computers more now that they have Vista instead of XP, others have gone and bought another copy of XP to just get rid of Vista entirely.

Personally, I hate it. I can’t seem to keep the systems that have Vista running happily, and they are painfully slow. The westXdesign network consists of 2 desktops and 5 laptops. Both desktops are running XP professional, and are by far the most reliable of the Windows-based systems we have ever run. They usually work just like you expect them to - which means you walk, up, sit down, and it works. Aside from the blue screen of death that occurs a lot more often than is acceptable, they get the job done. One of the laptops is my MacBook Pro with Leopard. I never have to do anything at all to get it to do what I want. Never have. Doubt I ever will. But Macs are a whole different story, and most of you don’t use a Mac, so on the nightmares: the 4 Windows Vista laptops. Various hardware manufacturers, various configurations, all with 2 gig or more of memory and at least core duo processors. Yet that ALL are slower to respond than the oldest of the 2 desktops, which is just a P4 with bare minimum memory. And none of them want to play nicely on the network with the rest of the computers OR the network attached storage. And forget the shared printers. What good is Vista if a basic user can’t get it to work with a simple home network, not to mention something more sophisticated in a business environment?

What has your experience been with Vista? Love it or hate it, I’d like to know more about how users are adopting Microsoft’s newest nightmare.