I was helping someone with an issue on his Vista computer earlier. The main problem was to do with being unable to log in. We sorted that out, but then there is another major problem.

The system is extremely slow. Most of the RAM is used up (nearly 800MB was in use at boot up, out of (I think) 1GB). The hard drive is constantly working which suggests that it is swapping all the time. Things take minutes rather than seconds and the machine is very sluggish.

I didn't have time to stay and fiddle with it much, but I stopped loads of junk from loading on startup (there was far too much). This made a tiny improvement. But even with few things running, it was still using heaps of memory and was very sluggish.

Just wondering, how normal is this for Vista? I can't imagine it was doing anything else other than swapping memory.
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I wouldn't recommend running Vista with less than 2GB. Its main flaws compared to windows 7 is memory resource use.

Another issue for a copy of Vista that's been installed and in use for some time is a load of temp files in the Windows directory. Every windows update adds every version of every file included in the updates, so over time this can get huge. When I was using Vista these files ended up being GBs

Try running the windows cleanup utility and clean as much as possible. Also it can be worth removing old restore points, and also check the drives Windows is watching for restore points as you only need the main windows on like this.
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Vista is Klunky poo & should be avoided at all costs. If you can't get Win7, do XP Pro over Vista any day.
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Thanks for the suggestions harrison.

Hehe. I'll suggest an Upgrade to Windows 7, but I think they are a bit too paranoid to do any such drastic changes .
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Vista used to run perfectly for me, but on a system with enough resources to handle it well (quad core with 8GB ram). It was smooth, fast and very stable. However as your friend has found out, on a more limited system (not much ram) it struggles.

I wouldn't have ever taken the step back down to XP after using Vista myself as I liked the OS much more (but I can appreciate so many put off of it by the resource hog it was).

In comparision I would go as far as saying Windows 7 is the nicest OS I've ever used. It is basically still an updated Vista, but with all the beta bloat and junk removed, the bugs cleaned up, and the additional features originally intended for Vista included. I would even go as far as to say it is as stable as Windows 2000, if not more. But as with any OS, correctly installing and setting it up, then maintaining it is key to smooth running.. this is where a lot of uses come completely unstuck because they just install junk on it and trash the registry and scatter files all over the HDD.
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I've hardly used either Vista or 7. Some of the computers at college over the last two years got upgraded to windows 7, while many still had XP. I tended to avoid using them though unless I needed software which I couldn't use anywhere else.

I just use Windows XP on this machine and Windows 2000 on my old machine, when I need Windows. Of course I do the vast majority of things in Linux these days, so I seldom need Windows.
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Tbh, I'd feel a lot better about myself if I didn't use a Bill Gates based computer at all.

Then again, it's nice to get dirty once in a while.
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Do you use non-M$ based systems at all?

BTW, I got told off on a forum the other week for referring to Microsoft as M$.
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Nothing wrong with referring to them as M$ in my view. I've been doing it for as long as I remember.

We need a similar one for Apple IMO.
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Funnily enough, that was on a Macintosh forum. Apparently it is immature and belongs in the 1990s.


Best thing I can think of for Apple is making it a little 1337: 4pp|e.
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