Why is Vista and Windows 7 So slow with Office 2007We have been developing an automated office application and it is interesting the performance difference between the OS 's.Here are some time differences to run an automated process using c# between OS and Versions of Office.XP - Office2003 - 43 secsXP- Office 2007 - 80 secsVista - Office2003 - 63 secsVista - Office2007 - 93 secsWindows 7 (Beta) - Office 2007 - 180 secsIt appears that Vista increases the processing time by at least 60%But the Current Beta Release of Windows 7 Build 7100 increases this again by another 160%These are all clean build systems with all the latest service patches installed for OS and Office.I would struggle to recommend any client upgrade to Vista or Windows 7 unless performance can be improved.Throwing more hardware at the problem is not the answer ..

Nobody will argue that Vista is slower than XP. The security enhancements made for a negative user experience. In regard to Windows 7, benchmarks against a beta operating system are typically regarded as interesting but not valid.Without knowing your automated script, hardware, and testing methodology there isn't much to discuss. My quick comment is that the Windows 7 RC is snappy compared to both Vista and XP. A quick Google shows a number of benchmarks and Windows 7 fares generally well, if not very well.

This is the c# code that we are running to simply search the shapes in a presentation. ArrayList ourShapes = new ArrayList(); foreach (PowerPoint.Slide slide in pres.Slides) { foreach (PowerPoint.Shape shape in slide.Shapes) { if (shape.Type == MsoShapeType.msoOLEControlObject || shape.Type == MsoShapeType.msoLinkedOLEObject || shape.Type == MsoShapeType.msoMedia || shape.Type == MsoShapeType.msoLinkedPicture) { ourShapes.Add(shape); } } }Performance testing is based on P4, 2 Ghz, 2 GRam PC.For some reason this process on Windows 7, PowerPoint 2007 takes significantly longer the Vista and XP.