helping you stay protected in the digital age

Since the Windows Vista public launch on January 30, 2007 I’ve avoided the operating system for 2 years, 1 month, and 1 day (yes, I counted).  But two days ago I decided to install Windows Vista Ultimate on my laptop dual-booting XP Professional and Vista.

I’d rather have a colonoscopy.

I can truly say I now understand why some folks refer to Vista as Microsoft’s red-headed step child. If it weren’t for the six reinstallations of the operating system of my laptop, one reinstallation of XP Professional because Vista screwed up the XP partition (it wasn’t my fault, really), repairing of the Vista bootloader I don’t know how many times, and countless Microsoft Update errors and manual installs of Vista updates one-by-one then the operating system would probably be my main one, but because the pain experienced troubleshooting vista is far greater than any medical procedure that requires a camera shoved up your rear end I’m going to have to give Vista a -1 out of 5, no, make that 10.

Somehow I managed to get Vista to run on the seventh install and play nicely with my XP installation. I plan on keeping Vista installed on my laptop for troubleshooting purposes so I can help others cope with the pain they experience on a day to day basis.

With my frustration vented, I can say I feel somewhat better. I’m posting this under the Vista OS right now and it hasn’t BSOD’d in the last 20 minutes (yeah, I have to patch Vista 32 bit so it’ll work with 4 gb of RAM, go figure). I know this “review”, if you can even call it that, is only a few years past due, but I had to vent someway. If you’re used to coloring in the lines and saying your A, B, C’s without missing a letter then go with Linux or stick with Windows XP. If drooling on yourself, playing with giant colorful blocks, and coloring on the wall because you’ve completely missed the paper is your style then switch to Windows Vista as soon as possible.

~ by johndball on March 3, 2009.