my first Windows Vista experience

After hearing and reading a lot about Windows Vista, I recently had my first experience with it. For an experiment I am currently conducting at UZH, I borrowed ten identical laptops from our competent and helpful IT services department. I received ten seemingly new HP Compaq nw8440 machines with Vista Business. Their specs from the system preferences: Intel Core 2 T7400, 2.17 GHz, 2 GB Ram, 80 GB HDD. The windows performance index (is that the correct translation for Windows-Leistungsindex?) of those gizmos was 4.2 (anything above 4 indicates a top machine, according to system info). So a very decent set-up. However, the continuously blowing fan was the adequate sound track for an experience that felt slow and clumsy. Despite the advanced speed of the system, responses were slow, a lot of HDD access without any applications running. An update of Windows Defender took more than five minutes during which the system was inoperable. I found the frequent security warnings and announcements extremely irritating. Even native Windows-System applications that are rooted deep within the system, such as Defender or Update, caused the screen to fade to grey and displayed a frightening warning message ("Windows defender update is about to launch, are you sure you want to proceed?"). To sum it up: It was a horribly annoying experience. I am so glad that I switched to the Mac, I'd never want to work with Vista. It feels bloated, clumsy, and slow.