But I’m not convinced by this. I’ve been using Vista in anger since the day of its release, and have long since given up Windows XP because I found I got most things done much more quickly with Vista in place.

So it came as a bit of a culture shock when, this weekend, I had brief cause to fire up a netbook. And although there are lots of things that Microsoft royally messed up in Vista, this drummed home to me just how basic XP is in comparison.

The most obvious example is launching programs. If you go outside the comfort zone that is the Quick Launch bar in XP, finding a program is a pain – sure, if you know the .exe filename then Windows +R will let you run it quite quickly, but otherwise you’ve got to dig around in the mess that is nested menus. With Vista, you just type in the keyword and a shortlist of likely apps (or documents) appears.

On a laptop, Vista is the obvious choice. Microsoft itself admits that hibernate and standby didn’t work particularly well in XP, while it takes a matter of two or three seconds to have your whole system up and running again when you resume from standby in Vista. If you’re anal enough to delve into the deeper dialog boxes, you can also take an incredible amount of control over battery-saving settings.

These are just examples. Vista’s out-of-the-box security is quantifiably superior to XP’s, the user accounts are easier to manage, the bundled apps like Windows Mail, Calendar and DVD Maker are actually quite pleasant to use, the built-in parental controls are excellent, and of course the interface is prettier. 

I’m not pretending for a second that Vista is a stunning success. There are many things Microsoft screwed up: Explorer’s interface is not only fiddly but on occasion actually obtrusive, to the extent that negotiating your way around a network is much, much easier in XP. User Account Control is one of those Good Ideas In A Meeting that unfortunately failed to take into account human behaviour. And Microsoft over-interfered in some areas that were working perfectly well, like making it more difficult to connect to a wireless network.

But there are ways around all of these problems, and in the end they’re annoyances rather than obstacles. So why, exactly, is the press and blog coverage of Vista almost universally negative? Why does every forum post I see slag it off?

Now I don’t have any issue with people highlighting Vista’s faults – they’re numerous, just as they are with most operating systems. What I do take issue with is people dismissing a whole operating system on the basis of broad-brush statements like “it’s rubbish”.

Some bits of it are rubbish, but so are some bits of Ubuntu Linux, Apple OS X, Windows XP. And there are lots more aspects of Vista that have been described as rubbish, when often the criticiser is just more used to the way of doing things the way XP (for example) did them. 

At the risk of opening myself up to even more abuse than usual, let me know. What don’t you like about Vista? What do you like? Have you decided not to even give it a try on the basis of comments elsewhere? Perhaps you’ve been pleasantly surprised (or otherwise) after buying a Vista laptop.

Post your thoughts below, while I go and get some sort of protective shield to hide behind…

That gives Mr B and the Microsoft engineers precisely 582 days (thank you Online Conversion.com) to get the operating system out of the door, or once again face ridicule for slipping deadlines.

On such a tight deadline (Vista took six years, remember) it’s patently obvious Microsoft isn’t ripping up Vista and starting again. Although the Vista Team Blog claims Windows 7 is a “major release”, it also reveals that the “the long-term architectural investments we introduced in Windows Vista and then refined for Windows Vista SP1 and Windows Server 2008 will carry forward in Windows 7.” There will be no new kernel either, with Microsoft even claiming that any hardware capable of running Vista will work fine with Windows 7.

So what will be new in Windows 7? All we really know so far is that it will sport iPhone-like multitouch technology, which is a brazen attempt by Microsoft to steal some of the iPhone’s stardust, but whether it proves as compelling an interface on the PC as it is on the phone is questionable.

My feeling is Microsoft’s going to need more in its locker than touchscreen technology to get people excited about Windows again. And it’s got 582 days to get on with it.