Is Windows Vista crippled?

This is the right question to ask. I waited quite some time before writing about a bizarre issue with Windows Vista. Initially I thought that it was a small bug to be quickly corrected by Microsoft: file copying, file deleting and file moving is apparently very slow in Vista. When we say slow, understand “10-50 times slower than in Windows XP”. Normally, this is a nearly impossible change between two versions of the same Operating System (XP and Vista) and such a bug should be corrected quite easily. But it seems that Microsoft is unable to explain what is happening (let alone correcting the issue).

This is so abnormal, that I start to kick the paranoid mode in. One of the explanations I heard is that if Microsoft is unable to go into details and does not bring a solution is because this is not a bug but a side-effect of an intended feature. The most probable thing coming to mind: Windows Vista includes an extension to the file system that allows to handle more directly Rights Management (DRM and similar). In order to do this, they have to pay a price in performance whenever we want to access to a file.

So, is the long-copy/long-delete bug actually an intended feature of an Operating System hiding more and more anti-user devices? It is the more possible if you remember that before Vista launch Microsoft touted the feature allowing to add a peremption date to files (“file auto-destruct on 31st December next year”) or to limit access to only a limited set of users.

See also: The Register.