Rose-tinted Spectacles?

Why would anyone expect Vista/Win7 to be faster than XP? I remember the same nonsense in 2001 when everyone complained that XP was slower than Win2K and Win98. Doh!

Every successive Windows OS will get slower, simply because they are designed to be more sophisticated each time, and not faster and faster.

If you are stuck with XP-era hardware, by all means stick with XP. If you have modern hardware (>2006), Vista and Win7 run great - certainly a lot better than XP did on my Athlons and P4s in 2001.

And there also seems to a whole raft of people passing comment on the failings of Win7 without having even tried the RC (which was the most stable and functional RC I've ever seen).