[GTO]

I am now officially FED UP of Vista. Yeah, I remember my initial glowing report. But the problem is, with each update (and it updates like three times a week), the computer gets slower and slower. The boot & program load times are infuriatingly slow now. Actually, I'm not fed up of Vista...I'm fed up with the updates!

I've been recommended to reformat + reinstall, and switch the updates to "off".

[Spitfire]

Originally Posted by GTO

I've been recommended to reformat + reinstall, and switch the updates to "off".

Go for Windows 7 now.

[Samurai]

GTO, time to move on to Windows7. I am on Win7 in my office desktop, my notebook, my iMac and my home PC.

My 3 year old Dell notebook became much faster after moving to Win7.

[IronH4WK]

Originally Posted by GTO

I've been recommended to reformat + reinstall, and switch the updates to "off".

seriously, i wouldn't recommend that!

if you can backup your data onto another drive, i would recommend deleting the partitions (Logical > Extended > Primary) and re-partitioning the drive.

btw, when you're moving to Win7, please don't partition the drive using the Windows 7 partitioning thingy. before you format or install Win7, download Seagate Disc Wizard from their site. make a bootable CD and boot using the same. partition using the Disc Wizard and then install Win7 on that partitioned drive.

reason: lets say you want to have 100GB primary partition for your C drive - when you create a that 100GB partition, Win7 (and Vista too) create a System Recovery drive and actually you get around 98-99GB on your primary and 100MB goes to System Recovery drive. if you're short on space, follow this procedure, else use the Windows 7 partitioning thingy.

[clevermax]

Originally Posted by GTO

I am now officially FED UP of Vista. Yeah, I remember my initial glowing report. But the problem is, with each update (and it updates like three times a week), the computer gets slower and slower. The boot & program load times are infuriatingly slow now. Actually, I'm not fed up of Vista...I'm fed up with the updates!

I've been recommended to reformat + reinstall, and switch the updates to "off".

I also face the same problem - the computer goes slower and slower day by day. But you can do some tweaking every once in a while to make is a bit faster -

- Run a chkdsk and fix any disk errors existing
- Free up some space on C and defrag completely (C:\>defrag c
Vista does it in idle time, but I guess its not doing it fully.
- If you have tools, clean up and defrag registry
- Reduce your start-up programs (msconfig.exe)
- I've found that running Combofix.exe significantly improves boot up time and overall system response though it is not what it is intended to do, and I won't recommend it.

[surd_biker]

Originally Posted by GTO

the computer gets slower and slower. The boot & program load times are infuriatingly slow now.

I've been recommended to reformat + reinstall, and switch the updates to "off".

I dont think reformatting and reinstalling is going to solve any problems.

1. Keep a check on how many programs are starting up on boot time and turn off the unneccesary ones.
2. Defragment your drives regularly.
3. Turn off any automatic updates service for any software(including windows automatic updates). You never know when these programs start connecting silently in the background to update. You can always check for updates manually - no need to keep these programs running all the time.
4. Use Hibernate option instead of shutdown in order to speed up your boot time. It can save a lot of time.
5. Update your antivirus regularly to check if there is any spyware/malaware getting loaded up.
6. Turn off windows search indexing.
7. If all else fails you can try this - Turn off visual effects and use the basic look for your desktop.

check these links for additional info

Optimize Windows Vista for better performance

Speed Up Windows Vista - Wired How-To Wiki

Ten Speed Tweaks That Can Make A Huge Difference In Vista Performance

TweakVista.com - Windows Vista: Performance Tweaks - Speed up Windows Vista

[Technocrat]

I am also interested in moving to Win 7 from Vista. Even after upgrading my ram from 1 Gb To 2.5 Gb there is barely any difference in performance.

Is it possible to dual boot Vista with Win 7?

@GTO - I have kept the auto updates off, I do it manually twice a month & select what I want to.

Originally Posted by surd_biker

4. Use Hibernate option instead of shutdown in order to speed up your boot time. It can save a lot of time.

Yep I do this with my laptop & it helps.

[surd_biker]

Originally Posted by Technocrat

Is it possible to dual boot Vista with Win 7?

Yup it is possible. Here are detailed HOW-TO's

Dual Boot Windows 7 with XP/Vista in three easy steps - TechSpot

How to Dual Boot Windows Vista And Windows 7 – Make Tech Easier

How to Dual Boot Windows 7 with XP or Vista - windows 7 - Lifehacker

How to dual boot Windows Vista and Windows 7 (Vista installed first)

The definitive dual-booting guide: Windows 7, Linux, Vista and XP step-by-step

[Technocrat]

Thanks a lot for the links surd_biker

[ph03n!x]

Windows Vista is to Windows 7 what Windows Me was to Windows XP - a stepping stone for a better OS, thats all. Time to ditch it folks!

[Technocrat]

I think ME was more close to win 98 than Xp

[jaysmokesleaves]

VISTA SUCKS..Period!!
Its a total pain. I have XP & vista. Even the original & pirated XP is better than the Vista.
I can run multiple applications on XP but not on vista.. it hangs.

Just waiting to find enough time to find a competent hardware chap to upgrade to 7.

I recieved an update to service pack 2 on Vista and that took out my sound drivers. Somehow selectively uninstalled the service pack 2 and reinstalled the sound driver after much trouble.
There are many more Vista sad stories I have to share.... :(

[IronH4WK]

Originally Posted by Technocrat

I think ME was more close to win 98 than Xp

that is correct - you get 100marks

[ph03n!x]

Originally Posted by Technocrat

I think ME was more close to win 98 than Xp

Originally Posted by IronH4WK

that is correct - you get 100marks

That was a figurative speech

Windows Me introduced a lot a new stuff (that didn't really work), which was later honed better in XP - top of my head example is System Restore and System File Protection, native support for USB drives, UPnP, Compressed folders (native ZIP support), etc.

The OS was mostly buggy, but these features made way into XP - which become one of the biggest successes of Microsoft. Of course, Windows XP is NT based, while Me, though based on 9x code, is supposed to have a few thousand lines of NT code (or so I remember!).

Windows Vista introduced the metadata search, Sidebar, Shadow copy (taken over from the server peer), WDDM, User mode audio framework, Readyboost, Superfetch, UAC, etc.

Some of these features were deal breakers of their time - devices not compatible with WDDM had Aero disabled. UAC broke programs that assumed Administrator rights. User mode audio framework made sound stutter. I can go on, but the biggest crib was that the OS was bloated. And slow.

Now take Windows 7 - the most successful OS yet again. It has all the features of Vista but is lean and mean. All the rough edges have been more or less smoothened. And thanks to the beating Vista got for UAC, WDDM, UMAF etc, all manufactures are geared for them by the time Win 7 saw the light...

[S_U_N]

Originally Posted by GTO

I am now officially FED UP of Vista. Yeah, I remember my initial glowing report. But the problem is, with each update (and it updates like three times a week), the computer gets slower and slower. The boot & program load times are infuriatingly slow now. Actually, I'm not fed up of Vista...I'm fed up with the updates!

I've been recommended to reformat + reinstall, and switch the updates to "off".

I am not sure why you are getting so many updates so frequently. Microsoft generally releases updates on second Tuesday (Wednesday morning India time) every month. There might be occasional emergency security updates which are 'out-of-band'.
You might have a lot of other programs which are having their own updates (e.g. Adobe, Firefox, blah blah..).
This is the cost of staying secure. It is not recommended to turn off auto-updates unless you want to review and install security fixes on your own (I don't think you have time for that).

Windows 7 Home Premium would cost you around INR 6000 (I am not sure about the upgrade-only pricing). Is it really worth it? That would be your call. You could try Windows 7 Enterprise for 120 days free of cost (though some features would be missing compared to Home Premium or Ultimate edition) and then decide. (Backup before the upgrade)
Alternatively you could try Ubuntu 10.04. This can run from a CD and can even install on a pen drive. It would work a lot faster than Windows 7. Plus Ubuntu does not slow down over a period of time like Windows. However, not all your applications may be available for Linux.