Windows Vista is widely considered one of Microsoft's most controversial releases. By the time Service Pack 2 (SP2) and the 64-bit (x64) architecture matured, the operating system was actually quite stable and functional. However, it arrived too late to fix the damage caused by its disastrous launch, and it is now rendered obsolete by security risks and hardware incompatibilities.

| Test | Result | |------|--------| | Boot to desktop | 28 seconds | | Shutdown | 9 seconds | | Windows Experience Index | 5.9 (max) | | Crysis (2007) @ 1280x1024 Medium | ~45 FPS | | File copy (2 GB single file, SATA→SSD) | ~110 MB/s |