I have covered Ed Bott talking about fixing Windows Vista before and his latest post is worth reading. I agree 100% with Ed, if Vista is installed with good drivers, no crapware and unobtrusive security packages you get a great experience in fact all my Vista machines run well even my little Samsung Q1,

I love this quote from Ed:

If you unbox a new PC and it performs like a slug, you’re likely to just live with the frustration (and maybe even blog about it), because everyone knows that Vista sucks. Right?

Wrong.

If you have problems with your installation of Vista checkout Ed's guide:

In this post and its accompanying image gallery, I’ll introduce you to four built-in tools you can use to track down and fix performance problems.

Page 2: Let Windows identify performance issues

Page 3: Gather hidden system details

Page 4: Get the most out of Task Manager

Page 5: Learn to use Vista’s amazing real-time performance sleuth

Fixing Windows Vista, Part 3: Top Troubleshooting Tools | Ed Bott’s Microsoft Report | ZDNet.com