Laptops Return to XP, Students Save Time!

Back in February I wrote about the good and bad of Vista on the laptops. Well, as it turns out the bad outweighs the good and our laptops have returned to WindowsXP. When it was all said and done, speed mattered most. Here are some numbers that should make it easy to understand. Starting up our laptops took 53 seconds with XP, 73 seconds with Vista. That's over 37% longer to boot up with Vista. Login times were worse. It too one minute and 35 seconds (1:35) for XP to log in and get a useable browser one screen. Vista took two minutes and fifty seven seconds (2:57) to do the same. That's more than 86% longer. Overall from off to ready to use, XP took 2:28 to Vista's 4:10 (~69% longer). Yep, close to 5 minutes from the time you check out a laptop to the time you get to use it not including the amount of time it takes to type in a user name and password. Heaven forbid you mistype or have to reboot. This was just unacceptable and the return the XP seems to be just fine with the students. In fact, I've not heard any complaints about XP or the rollback to Office 2003. Now I see why Dell charges users to downgrade to XP. I still wouldn't pay it, though. :)