I had the opposite experience with my Brother DCP-115C all-in-one printer.
Went to their website to get drivers, but they were non-existing - 'Pending release'.
Connected the printer anyway, and whopti 'Installing drivers for Brother DPC-115C'.
Thank you, Vista.

My Vista install was running quite smoothly for 2½ years as well - though, without any kind of need for constant care taking, but then again....
The OS was starting to cough up blood the last six months I ran it, mainly because of user fuckup so I guess I'd still be running Vista if I'd been more carefull....

Wash my car? Change the oil? Nope, not at all.
(I don't have a car)

And Ace.... I'll be slipping into those comfy old jeans too, some time next week.

Oops, I knew that. Duh!

Ah...but no OS is immune to that....

I really liked Vista, especially the x64 edition. In fact, when I've finished rebuilding the upstairs rig I'll be reinstalling it on that... without the slightest hesitation.   And Snowy, I can agree in part on the Vista vs Win 7 speed issue.  I had a dual boot setup with both and found Vista to be the quicker of the two on the same hardware. 

I have a new and more powerful setup nowadays and have never had Vista installed on it, but Win 7 is pretty darned quick on it... Win 8 is even faster. 

Great to read you 'pros' toing & froing about the pros & cons of 7 & Vista - good stuff. I'm not an expert, but I know what I like. After trying 7, I have found it less user-friendly than I anticipated so have gone back to XP (never tried Vista due to bad publicity & some bad experience from family members) so I can have the benefit of all the great old skins of the past as well as Rightclick. I do wish someone could update Iconpackager as well - seems to be suffering a bad case of inertia.

Dude, your karma count has just almost tripled.

I can't wait to get to use RightClick again.

never understood the draw to rightclick, I mean I can see that it provides more choices but we do skin that aspect when making a WB.

It's an excellent app... there are additional ways to add things to your right click menu, though:

http://www.howtogeek.com/howto/windows-vista/add-any-application-to-the-desktop-right-click-menu-in-vista/   also works in W7.

I suspect part of the reason Vista runs better now than it did at launch, aside from the service packs, is new hardware. Upgrading an XP rig to Vista was the route most probably took. Sort of like putting a full race engine in a Yugo. It'll go fast, but sooner or later, it's going to crash....hard.

Vista on modern hardware should be expected to perform better.

Depends on where the 'full race engine' comes from ..... Nifty Fifty? ....

Thought I might need a picture..... of a Nifty Fifty

It's not just the skinning part. I've been doing that a lot lately (building the skins on an XP system), but it's also the custom menu content.
I preferr a clean desktop without intruding icons/shortcuts and docks, so I neatly add all my shortcuts to the RightClick menu.

I sure hope so, but I am a positive pessimist.
I -always- expect the worst, and if the worst happen - well, that was what I'd expected. So no big deal.
And I'll always be happily surprised if everything turns out positive.

Doc: Reg-hacks has always been the 'undergound' part of skinning. It was a big thing a decade ago for those not wanting to use third-party applications for Windows customization.
I had the furtune of being in close contact with one of the best, if not the best of that trade, WinT

Windows 98 res-hacked and reg-hacked to pieces. All done by WinT.
I build a WB around this theme, MeanGreen back in 2005.

I don't understand why some computers are slowing while others are not, unless those that slow have Win 7 installed after the fact.  That might be part of the problem.  Win7 needs power and memory  I have been using Win 7 Professional on a new Dell core i7 with 6G memory for 5 months now, and its as fast as it was the day I got it, way faster then Vista or XP.  Course, I clean my system weekly and use multiple virus protection tools to insure protection.  IMO

I somehow doubt -anyone- is able to give an explaination on why.
There is an infinite number different hardware combinations + an infinite number of software combinations. No one can really predict how any type of software combination will perform on any given hardware combination. It's just simply impossible.

But in my case.... Windows 7 will be given a second chance.
I've made some changes to my daily routine, like closing browsers when not in use, plus removed a bunch of software.
The main culprit I suspect may have been WFX5. As soon as this shitter was removed everything seems to 'clear up'.
Ok, so I do have all those fancy effects etc etc and what not it did, but heck... did I actually need it? Nah. Was pure eyecandy/fun.
This also got rid of Windows being unable to shutdown properly because some application prevented it.

So, Windows 7 is staying - for the time being.

I don't want to reinstall the whole system IF it's not really necessary.

@ Snowman sorry that iam terribly late on my reply- for the SSD speed score ( please don´t think your ssd is slowing down bc of the windows index
Its normal ssd´s are jumpy mine does that too... if you want to check your ssd speed use (crystal disk info) or similar tools/since the windows index is not accurate
ok back to windows 7 make sure your drivers are up to date and if you intall any new drivers make sure you don´t have dead driver / leftovers in registry or files laying around...
If you use your SSD as main make sure its not to full and clean your IE/(FOX/Chrome chache...
 ( cleaning the source  ""C:\Documents and Settings\USERNAME\AppData\Local\Microsoft\Windows\Temporary Internet Files\Low\Content.IE5" 
"C:\Documents and Settings\USERNAME\local Settings\Temporary Internet Files\Content.IE5" 

these folders are a pain since they gather everything every picture every stream video you view over time its basically like downloading  without knowing these folders normaly dont get wiped even if you clean your temp files might be worth a try to get rid of some space
Not all of the files can be deleted 


g
 

Snowman, thanks for the high 5. I'm curious as to whether or not I can get your own excellent RC skins anywhere - they look great, especially Agenda.

Sorry, Snowman, forgot to add I'm on XP for the foreseeable.

Unfortunately that was what brought my Win 7 to it's knees as well. Things just went downhill from there so I did a "Repair/Upgrade install the end of last week and it solved all of the problems I was having and now my boot is back in the 30 to 40 second range as opposed to over two minutes. The reinstall fixed many issues that have been plaguing my system for a while. It was time consuming with all of the stuff I have on the system but well worth the effort. You may want to consider it before choosing the clean install option.

All my released RightClick skins can be found right [HERE]
Wether or not I will be releaseing more I do not know, but let's just say that it's not entirely impossible.

Whenever I install/reinstall (my own system) it is -always- a clean install. I know it's time consuming but it prevents the possibility of any left over 'shit' that might cause problems from the previous install.

Funnily enough, I removed it from my Win 7 installation and immediately noticed an improvement once I rebooted.  Before I occasionally noticed lag when copying/moving files, now that seems to have gone.  I've made no other changes so I feel it was probably WFX5 that caused it.

Looks like Windows 7 stays put.... (for now)

It's been acting nicely for nearly a week, and on top of that I've gotten RightClick up and running again! Without crashing Explorer!