When I first installed Vista as an upgrade to XP about 3 1/2 weeks ago, I was somewhat disappointed in how long it took to boot up, and how long it took for my opening screen to appear. I was upset about the constant hard disk thrashing and of course, I had to load many new drivers (the most difficult being X-Fi drivers for Creative Soundblaster). NOW....VISTA is phenomenal. It seems that from turning the computer on to full opening screen is 35 seconds. Everything moves faster, and FSX is faster. Yes, I defragged using O&O, but I've read articles and forums that say that Vista has to go through a process of learning how YOU use the computer, "Superfetching" processes occur, and eventually the hard disk thrashing slows and stops. Then everything speeds up! Well, I'm here to say that this indeed has seemed to happen in my particular case. I'm really enjoying Vista right now, and look forward to installing "Office 2007" next week. I had my apprehensions, but it appears to be a very worthy upgrade for me.I now look forward to the FSX SP1 update and really feel that it will be a great improvement to my favorite sim, and that Vista will be the perfect OS for it. I hope some of you are experiencing the "adaptive nature" of Vista as it runs on your computer....as I am. I'd love to hear from others about this phenomenon.

I also very much like vista. FSX is the only program that I have run that has problems with it though. I get constant CTD's in fsx, especially with a certain aircraft that I love to fly. The drivers for the x-fi or the 8800 are nowhere near prime time though so in 6 months I am confident that things will run even better. For now I see about a 10-15% frame rate loss in some games, and some games run the same as they do in xp. It just depends on the game. I much prefer the UI and rarely ever boot back into xp anymore.________________________________________________________________________________________________Intel D975XBX2 'Bad Axe 2' | Intel Core 2 Duo E6600 @ 3.20Ghz | 2 GB Super Talent DDR2 800 | Big Typhoon VX | eVGA 8800GTS @ 565/900 | Seagate 2x320GB SATA RAID-0 | OCZ GameXStream 700W | Creative X-Fi | Silverstone TJ-09BW | Matrox Triplehead Setup

Do try the O&O defrag program. There's a free trial for it. Use the Complete/Name method of defragging in the O&O menu. Not sure if it helps in all cases, but after a LONG time defragging...things seemed to run smoother for me.

Every once in a while I hop on my girlfriend's XP system to do something, and it just shocks me how I used it for so long. The big thing is when I had to search for a file, and I sat there and waited and waited while it looked.Also, I use the search in the start menu to run my programs about 99% of the time. Just pull of the start menu, type in the first few letters of the program you want to run and bam. No more searching through 100 program folders for the one I want anymore.

Yeah I must say I like vista right now. FSX flies pretty good and the frame rates don't get much below 40 at any time....I guess it can only get better. :)

>When I first installed Vista as an upgrade to XP about 3 1/2>weeks ago, I was somewhat disappointed in how long it took to>boot up, and how long it took for my opening screen to appear.>I was upset about the constant hard disk thrashing and of>course, I had to load many new drivers (the most difficult>being X-Fi drivers for Creative Soundblaster). >NOW....VISTA is phenomenal. It seems that from turning the>computer on to full opening screen is 35 seconds. Everything>moves faster, and FSX is faster. Yes, I defragged using O&O,>but I've read articles and forums that say that Vista has to>go through a process of learning how YOU use the computer,>"Superfetching" processes occur, and eventually the hard disk>thrashing slows and stops. Then everything speeds up! Well,>I'm here to say that this indeed has seemed to happen in my>particular case. >I'm really enjoying Vista right now, and look forward to>installing "Office 2007" next week. I had my apprehensions,>but it appears to be a very worthy upgrade for me.>I now look forward to the FSX SP1 update and really feel that>it will be a great improvement to my favorite sim, and that>Vista will be the perfect OS for it. >I hope some of you are experiencing the "adaptive nature" of>Vista as it runs on your computer....as I am. I'd love to hear>from others about this phenomenon.>same thing for me :-)the Superfetch feature seems to be very smart and useful for FS

>Every once in a while I hop on my girlfriend's XP system to>do something, and it just shocks me how I used it for so long.> The big thing is when I had to search for a file, and I sat>there and waited and waited while it looked.>>Also, I use the search in the start menu to run my programs>about 99% of the time. Just pull of the start menu, type in>the first few letters of the program you want to run and bam. >No more searching through 100 program folders for the one I>want anymore.That's usually because in the past, listening to some `snake oil` tips, you have turned off one of the key functions - like the indexing service "to save system resources".And it sounds like you never properly understood how to set up category folders in your start menu!On equivalent hardware, searching via Vista takes about as long as a properly-tuned XP system as the file sizes and numbers of folders are much larger and the hardware search function is only using the same protocols and seek heads. Also, you may not be comparing oranges with oranges. It's hardly fair to blame a bloated, never-reinstalled XP setup loaded with addons and programs, tweaked and with a Registry the size of a novel with what must still be a relatively lean, mean Vista setup as you simply won't have all the software on a Vista machine that you had on XP. I have no doubt the search function is faster under Vista, but why would most people care most of the time, unless they use the search function every hour of every day?Allcott