Vista isn't so bad most of the time. It's only a pain when run it :lol:
Seriously though, I don't have most of the problems Vista users seem to complain about. This is probably a consequence of the fact that I don't use it for anything except gaming. I disabled just about every non essential service (including themes). What I have, looks pretty much like Win2K.
The most annoying things I'd say I'd encountered with Vista are
1) Vista likes to guess which folder view you prefer, even when you tell it you want a basic list only. The moment any sort of media file ends up in a folder it suddenly tries to get all clever and switch to a media centric view with ratings, meta information about the media etc. Not a lot of fun when it's a folder cram full of source code with a test sound file or something.
2) Vista's update manager. For some reason (though I managed to disable this one), when it gets a critical update, Vista wants to reboot your machine. It pops up a dialogue and you can postpone it. However, here's the rub. The dialogue doesn't tend to be visible when you are in the depths of the capital wasteland.
3) Vista's image viewer. It's crap. It doesn't seem to let you view at 1:1 size most of the time.
As for boot times and performance, I can't really complain. It's slower to boot than linux on the same machine, but one it's up it is fine. I've played fallout 3 at 1680x1080 many times, wondered why my hard disk is making a noise and discovered it's running a defender or antivirus sweep. You can't tell any other way as there's no observable slowdown.
