My desktop PC has been suffering bitrot for some time, and last month WinXP finally turned up its toes, so it was time for a reinstall. My data lives on a separate partition (and is backed up externally) so I could just wipe the C: partition and start over from clean.

Trouble is, my WinXP install is an ancient OEM version. Being OEM, each time I need to reinstall on new hardware, I need to ring up MS and beg for an activation code. And being ancient, it also takes forever to get all the updates. This is pre-SP1, so that's a lot of updates! I don't have any old hardware or software any more, so I decided to bite the bullet and buy Windows 7. Word was that it was a bit slower than WinXP but not seriously so.

Bad mistake. See, my PC is a single-core Sempron 2800 (running at 1.6GHz) with half a gig of RAM. The poor thing now takes an eternity to start up. With nothing at all happening, 10% of the processor is being used - what by, I have absolutely no idea. Just resizing a Windows Explorer window takes 40% of the processor. Playing back a WAV file with nothing else happening at all frequently gets stutters during playback. I haven't tried running Reaper yet, but I have no great hopes for it playing ball any more.

Deep unf*ckingbridled joy. Not.

No constructive reason for posting this, I'm afraid, except to vent a bit, and perhaps to warn anyone with lower-spec machines to stick with WinXP.

Edit: I know, I know, upgrade RAM. I will do. Just a PITA to need hardware upgrades to what was a perfectly useable PC.

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