I’ve read a bunch of complaints from people about how slow Windows Vista is. Frankly, I’m mystified by those complaints, because my experience is the exact opposite. Apparently I’m not alone. Carl Campos has documented his 10 weeks with Windows Vista:
After 10 years of supporting Windows systems, I have a good feel for how fast a system works, sort of like a mechanic who can listen to a car idle and identify its problems. Vista is quick, responsive and it seems to multitask better than XP. Vista, unlike XP, is still usable when applications hog the 100% of the CPU or constantly page the hard drive. Vista uses a tremendous amount of memory while not doing much, but it doesn’t appear to affect the feel of the system at all.
Overall, it’s an excellent piece of writing, with a well-rounded, balanced look at the pros and cons of Vista. Well worth reading.
Yes My vista does run very slowly. Why?
I just bought a new laptop and it was in it so to my knowledge it was not upgraded? any help would be greatly appreciated. PLEASE. thanks.
Gina, what kind of notebook did you buy (make, model, etc)? What security software is on it? Did you install any additional software right away?
I bought a cheap one because I only needed it temporarily and it was cheaper to buy then rent here in Maine. It is a Toshiba Model: Satellite A135, Norton 360, Processor: Genuine Intel (R) CPU TT2080 @ 1.73GHz 1.73 GHz
Memory (RAM) 446 MB
System type 32-bit operating system
LAN connection Maine road runner
Anything else you need or does that explain it all?
I am afraid to know what I need to do.
I just need it for my residency in May-June.
Thanks for any help.
Ah, the 446MB of RAM and Norton 360 are a pretty dangerous combination. The recommended minimum RAM for Vista is 512MB, so you’re already falling short. And Norton’s software is notorious for its impact on performance. I would recommend you turn off everything except the antivirus component and see if that helps.
Press Ctrl+Shift+Escape to open Task Manager, Now look in the lower right corner of that dialog box. What percentage appears after the words “Physical Memory”?
well that is all that is in there except a trial program for Office 2007, and in the task manager it only says, yahoo messenger and system.. but it was slow before the yahoo was in it.
what are your suggestions about getting more of something to help it limp along?
No, no, look again. When you open Task Manager you’ll see three values in the very bottom of the window: Processes, CPU Usage, and Physical Memory. I’m interested in the number in the lower right corner. Physical Memory: XX%
What is that percentage?
oh 68%
I just got a new Dell laptop with Core 2 duo T7200 2GHz, 1 GB ram @ 667mhz, ATI X1400, and Vista home basic. It was running slow, so I set out to improve performance. I uninstalled ALL the bloatware, disabled windows defender, UAC, sidebar, security center, indexing, and all other services/software that were non-essential. I disabled all visual themes and selected “adjust for best performance.” It ran a little bit faster, but nowhere near my 4 year old XP machine with p4 2.4ghz, 512 ram, and Geforce2 32MB. I run apache, ftp, and mysql on my XP machine, and I can have 20 high demand applications running as well as high demand on my server without noticing any slowdown.
The programs I use most on the Vista laptop are Visual Studio 2005, IE7, windows mail, and media player. This is all MS software, so there shouldn’t be compatability issues. It still runs slow, with the biggest lags in windows explorer, switching between programs, launching programs (especially IE), and doing file IO. Even saving small files results in a slight hang. The hard drive is plenty fast as evidenced through file transfers and vista’s own rating.
The fact is, all other parameters having been eliminated, Vista is SLOW, so I will be loading XP so I can realize the full speed of my computer. Also, as a developer, all the execution permissions are really annoying. When I’m developing and debugging apps I don’t want to have to think about “run as admin,” or “run in ** compatibility mode.”
I don’t know much about Vista, but I am searching the Internet to find out why visitors to my site who have just purchased computers with Vista are having trouble downloading simple pdf files. It take several minutes to download what use to take several seconds.
Makes me wonder what will happed to my online business which provides printable downloads. Slow won’t cut it.
Any suggestions for my visitors other than buying a Mac?
Just received my new Dell Inspiron 1505 Intel 5200 processor and 1 gig of ram and ATI X1400 video, and Vista Premium factory installed. Much slower than I expected. Previous laptop was a Thinkpad 770ED with a 233 mhz PII with windows 2000 pro. Dell seems to drag and uses over 500 meg just to run.
Ok I have figured it out. going to the store now, I whined after I talked to someone from Toshiba. they should have explained to me that 512 is just enough to run the sticking thing and I need more to even make it worth a penny! stupid sales people! I guess that new saying about the customers getting smart was for me. I should have figured it out before but I guess I am too trusting.
STupid me.
Stephen,
Using over 500MB to run is fine. In fact, you want the system to use that RAM, not just let it sit there.
When you say it’s much slower than you expected, what do you mean, specifically?
I ran Vista for 2 weeks and I can say that it is the wors opperating system I have ever tested on my PC.I have an Intel Core2Duo 2600MHz , 1 GB RAM , 256 Video ….,and running Windows Vista on my computer is like running Windows 98 on a 486 !!!
It suck,I hate it !
Well, Miha, I have a system here with an almost identical configuration to yours, and it runs great. So I don’t know what your issue is, but it isn’t (only) Vista.
PS: Most people use Windows 98 on a 486 as an example of fast performance these days. The less it does, the faster it runs.
Well my Vista takes like 7 minutes to boot, its on a dual boot partition of 160 GB Western Digital SATA Hardrive. Partition is 80 GB. Processor is 2.66 P4, 1.1 GB, 256 MB Nvidia Card. Quite Frankly its a piece of crap. If anyone can tell me what I am doing wrong I will like to know I have been working on computers most of my life, and this OS is just unacceptable.
Well, On my part, I personally like vista, but my biggest problem is moving, copying, and deleting files, which tend to take forever. On average when I move one file on one partition to another, I get an average speed of less than 500kb/s.
It is annoying considering how much I move and change and whatnot, but not enough for me to stop using vista (business ed). Occasionally, moving files will go fast, but rarely. And XP did files flawlessly and fast.
but meh, it is a problem that is all over google, and Microsoft should address. just for my stats, its a 2.53Ghz P4 w/ 2gb DDR2100 and my drives are all 7200rpm and whatnot on a gigabyte mobo. I wouldn’t be surprised if all these problems are a driver problem with the Intel chipset.