Microsoft’s recent desktop OS, and I call it desktop because I do not currently consider it a viable workstation OS, is almost 15GB installed. I’m currently running Vista on my workstation and laptop at the office. I also have it running on my home workstation. Previous to SP1 for Vista the windows directory was a whopping 14.9 GB in size. The largest directory was “winsxs” which apparently holds multiple versions of dll’s and such used for compatibility. I have had many issues with Vista and was hoping SP1 would solve them all for me. Now that my windows directory is up to 20.1 GB with SP1 installed I’m disappointed to say that none of my issues were resolved.

Some current computer specifications are in order…

Processor: Intel Q6600
Memory: 4GB DDR2 PC8000
Motherboard: ASUS P35
Hard Drive: Raid0 SataII 200GB

As you can tell I do build my own home machines. At the office I have a Dell Precision T7400:

Processor: Intel Xeon 5482
Memory: 8GB DDR2
Hard Drive: Raid0 SataII

Neither of these machines are what I would consider as under powered. However Vista always seems sluggish. At home I have a very annoying issue of just about anytime I open explorer the window is white and not responsive for about 30 seconds. After which it is perfectly fine. If you wait another 10 minutes to open explorer again then you will experience the same issue. At the office I have an issue with adding folders to my taskbar. I usually add the desktop to the task bar and use it as a menu system to quickly open items without having to minimize to the desktop. I’m fine up to this point, however once I lock my taskbar items a tiny bit of the first icon shows in the taskbar for the desktop. Unlock and it goes away. Very annoying.

Being a Systems Engineer usually means you get to manage some Microsoft products. One product I’m sure a lot of us get to manage is Exchange. If so you may have already found that you are unable to install the Microsoft Exchange Systems Management Console on Vista. It doesn’t install with some missing features, or say that it cannot be installed but still let you, It will not install, period. Another issue I found recently was that I have to call Microsoft for a hotfix to get the DHCP admin working in Vista. How am I to manage all of these Microsoft products when I cannot install the consoles or use the consoles on my workstations?

I was hoping SP1 would fix these issues that seem to bug me the most. However after waiting the hour for SP1 to install on the 2 machines I use the most, I’m just about right where I was. Eventually I’m hoping Microsoft will get Vista running as good as XP. For now I’ll fight the urge to switch back to XP.

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