Last year when Windows Vista was released I did what everyone else did and tried it out straight away, I much preferred the installation procedure compared to Windows XP however when the installation had finished and I got into Vista that’s when things started to go downhill, it felt slow, I absolutely hated the new start menu, not because I wasn’t used to it, more by the fact that the new layout didn’t make any sense.

The appearance was good but I’ve never really bothered with themes, even in windows XP I used the “Windows Classic” theme. So I decided to stick with the “Windows Vista Basic” theme rather then Aero. I was a bit shocked to see that Vista was using 1.5GB of RAM on a fresh install. Fair enough every edition of windows has always used more memory then the previous one but 1.5GB seemed very excessive, especially on a laptop with most only supporting 2 or 4GB of RAM.

Upon exploring the Control Panel this is where I really started to get annoyed, why the hell Microsoft have chosen to rename a lot of the control options I don’t know, it’s just going to complicate things for both consumers and professionals supporting consumers.

I proceeded to install device drivers (using vista drivers!) and Vista blue screened so many times on simple things such as printer and scanner drivers that I just proceeded without them. After a week of constantly struggling with Windows Vista I decided enough was enough and reverted back to Windows XP

So today (nearly a year later) I decided to give vista another go, things have gone a lot smoother this time, Service Pack 1 must have brought some much needed updates because having used it for a full day I haven’t had the BSOD yet.

I can actually play Half Life 2 on it this time too, so its obviously much better, that being said I still think it’s a pain in the arse to work with. Will I keep using it? Well for now yes (see below).

Over the past year I have been closely following what Apple has been up to and I have recently been considering making the move to a Mac. Obviously I won’t be able to play games on a Mac but I don’t game that much anyway, other then gaming everything else I need is available on a Mac so I will probably go with an iMac as my main workstation though at the moment I still haven’t decided.