In Search of Everything All at Once

The computer I keep Windows XP on started developing problems, so a reinstall was in order. I knew I didn't want to put Vista 32-bit back on, and since I recently obtained the 64-bit edition from our volume license agreement, I thought I'd give it a whirl, hoping that it would be a better experience than my first one with Vista.

It's been several days, and while I can't report with certainty yet, it does indeed look like Vista 64 is substantially faster and more polished than 32-bit. I'm sure they're the same edition, just compiled with the 64-bit assembly, but it really does feel like a different (and better) OS. The faster part surprised me quite a bit, because Windows XP 64-bit wasn't much faster than the 32-bit edition of XP for me (if any), but this does seem noticeably snappier. It's almost compatible to the performance of XP.

Frame rate issues in games were gone, they're performing roughly the same now as they were under Windows XP. The compatibility problems I ran into with Windows XP 64-bit were gone, I didn't have one single 64-bit issue.

So far, I'm impressed, but Vista has done a lot to make me feel like it's a third rate operating system, and even if this install takes and I keep it for quite some time, I'll still not be crazy about the direction Microsoft took vista. That said, I do have to give credit where credit is due.

I hope I won't regret this post a week from now.