You heard and read the tales of many bloggers and daily life PC users of how they anxiously waited for Windows Vista's much awaited public release, and how it broke their heart to know that it isn't quite much of a... well...operating system.

And almost daily, many organizations hoping to direct the use of computing in the hopes of expanding their business, purchase Windows Vista and give it a test drive, which is almost always a test crash.

Why? Why is all this happening? Wasn't Vista supposed to be Microsoft's biggest success? And though I won't provoke arguments by saying that people should downgrade to XP, I'll say that most of the software present in Vista isn't as useful to us now than the software present in XP was useful to us then. I'll give some examples: Windows XP, when it was first released, shows the amount of progress Microsoft had made since Windows 2000 and Me. It boasted many new security features, a brand new GUI, and was the perfect OS for homes, industries, and laptop users alike.

And Microsoft was kind enough to keep their users happy with the latest security updates and newest versions of Windows software at their Windows Update site. And then last year, Microsoft released Windows Vista, which it promised would include all the features needed to make your computer do everything. That's not an official claim, but the amount of hard work and bloatware they put into Vista seems equal, so they were surely planning to make the OS a revolution in personal computing, right?

And speaking of bloatware, Vista is full of it. I won't anger those fans of Vista by saying that Vista should be replaced and a more updated version of XP should be released with all the good stuff of Vista in it, but let's face it, it's the right choice, isn't it? Windows Vista was never received with as much as enthusiasm as Microsoft was hoping for. The OS was found to be slow, memory consuming, and laptop batteries reported exhausting usage when one ran even the Basic version of Vista and the laptop had all the system requirements checked. So, now we come to versions. Believe me, I sat up all might reading reviews about Vista where I read the whole list of Vista versions several times, but there are so many that I can't remember them now. Hopefully, I'll just suffice by taking you through them one at a time. First there's the Home Premium. I've read its features and let me tell you this, DO NOT WASTE YOUR MONEY ON IT....HOME PREMIUM IS NOT WORTH IT! Then there's the Business versions, two of them I guess. They pack a whole lot more than the Home one, some more bloatware and combine together to form a good OS for those multinational biggies that can afford to use it on their PCs.

And finally, we come to the Windows Vista Ultimate one. No, I'm not listing more criticisms. Instead, I'll tell you my own personal experience in handling Vista. Till date I've bought Vista Ultimate twice. Both times, it installed perfectly well. Both times, it booted fine. Both times, the screen resolution never went higher than 640x480. Both times, I switched back to XP.

The main reason why I don't want to work with Vista again is the lack of compatibility with many graphic drivers.  Other reasons:

• User Account Control [UAC] - Microsoft stated that they built UAC for a specific purpose, to annoy you.
• Packed with less needed features- Vista relies more on eye candy than functionality. Though you can get a lot of things done with it, you can do the same [or more] with XP too.
• Microsoft's failure to realize that the classic Windows Explorer interface is losing popularity. Let's just hope Windows 7 doesn't have that ruddy taskbar.
• Bloatware, bloatware, bloatware- 1 GB programs with 1% usability.

I'd add some links for those who aren't convinced.

 Xp versus Vista at Tom's Hardware - Essential, you should check this one out.

Vista vs XP at InfoWorld - Haven't read much of this one but it has major sections of reviews, like usability, compatibility, etc.

Roundup: I'm not anti Vista. I love its new GUI as much as the next person. It also has Windows Defender, which is a great tool. The only problem is, its not worth it. Let's just wait and see whether Windows 7 makes up for what Vista messed up.

-Pixeleo