Unknown Windows OS?

[nihil]

Nihil can we not come to the conclusion that Vista was just a broken OS?

Actually I don't think that is true. I know quite a few people who are using it quite happily, even though they had XP before it. Those who got it with their first system generally don't know the difference.

It was launched late, which is never a good sign with MS as some of us remember from Win 95

Presumably because of this, MS let OEMs badge the products they sold for Christmas 2005 (?) as either:

1. Vista Ready
2. Vista Capable

The first meant that the hardware should run Vista Home Premium or Ultimate with all features activated. The second meant that you should stick to XP

You got a voucher or whatever to "upgrade" () to Vista when it was finally released.

With Vista, MS introduced the "Windows Experience Index", and the implication was that if your hardware scored 3.0 or better out of 5.9, it "should" run all the Vista eye candy features without problems.

This was not always the case where people:

1. Upgraded existing rigs, particularly with legacy components and peripherals.

2. The "upgrade" was to Home Premium, when the kit they were sold wasn't up to the job (Intel 915 chipset anybody???).

3. They used "anytime upgrade" on a Home Basic machine to go to Home Premium or Ultimate.

And, as an Acer EVP pointed out back in 2006................. Home Basic was nothing to shout about (although it did actually work ):

Microsoft is effectively smuggling through a price hike for Windows Vista - by making the entry-level version so poor that no-one will want to use it. So says Jim Wong, senior veep at Acer, the world's number four PC maker, who told UK hack Jon Honeyball: "The new [Vista] experience you hear of, if you get Basic, you won't feel it at all. There's no [Aero] graphics, no Media Center, no remote control."

Well, my experience was as follows:

Processor.................... 3.6
RAM........................... 4.0
Windows Graphics......... 5.3
Gaming Graphics........... 3.9
HDD........................... 5.6

That gave a score of 3.6 based on the lowest element, which should be more than adequate. It wasn't, not even when I turned off all the fancy stuff.

I also did the usual with BIOS and driver updates, but that didn't help either.

The machine that I am currently running Vista (HP) on scores: 5.9, 5.9, 5.9, 5.7, 5.9, and it runs just fine

Weird thing is that the same box that I was previously running Vista on is now running Windows 8 with everything turned on, and doesn't seem to be having any of the same problems .

I must say I cannot recall anyone who bought Vista Home Basic; or an HP/Ultimate box in late 2006 complaining about it. It seems like the early adopters bore the brunt of it as usual.