It is frustrating, considering the only place I run Windows is at the office. At home I run nothing but OS X and Ubuntu. So, as an experiment, I installed Windows XP on my Asus eeePC 701 about a month ago to see if it made it any more useful to me.

I did a custom nLite installation of XP so that I could get rid of absolutely anything I didn’t need–this took my installation size wayyy down to just at a gig. When you’re dealing with a 4GB SSD drive, you have to make sure that Windows doesn’t eat up your entire partition! It took a while to install, but when I booted–it was FAST. It booted faster than any normal Windows installation I have ever worked with. I barely had time to blink before I was already on my desktop.

I installed a handful of programs–Firefox, Skype, Microsoft Office (on the SD card to save some space), iTunes (just because), Foxit Reader, and a ClearType utility (a must for making text on the small screen sharp!). At first I was impressed by the performance…but after a week or so with XP on the machine, I started to change my tune.

In my opinion, Windows is not meant for the sub-notebook. Some of the things that have turned me off:

1. Windows and Windows programs can be giant resource hogs. I’ve never had trouble with Skype, not even with video calls, on the eeePC running Ubuntu. But last night I was testing Skype video calling in Windows, and my processor was maxing out at 100%. I’ve also noticed that other programs are not very snappy if I’ve had the computer on for awhile. It’s really zippy after a reboot, but I don’t want to have to constantly reboot my machine to get good performance. I’ve even noticed that my wireless signal is not as solid under Windows–watching anything on hulu.com causes massive amounts of buffering, and I had an utterly crappy voice connection on Skype.
2. Windows is not as smart as Ubuntu. Ubuntu Hardy Heron knows enough to resize many screens for the smaller eeePC. I had trouble with lots of programs trailing off the screen in Windows, with no handy key+mouse combination to move them around. The Move command just flat wouldn’t work because Windows didn’t want to put the screen where I wanted it to go. It has made using the eeePC frustrating for anything more than checking my email and the occasional IM conversation.
3. I just don’t feel good about using Windows anymore. I use it at work because I have to, but I find myself pining for some of the programs on OS X or Ubuntu. I wish I could use the same nice shortcuts and time-saving programs (Oh Quicksilver, I love you so! You, too, Gnome-Do.), and I just think Windows is visually unappealing, even when it’s skinned. Plus, I got a little addicted to the giant treasure trove of open-source software for Linux. It’s like Christmas!

It’s great to be able to watch Netflix streaming or have iTunes on my eeePC, but I’ve discovered that I don’t think it’s worth it. XP is dragging my little laptop down. Maybe if Windows came out with an OS specifically tailored to the sub-notebook or UMPC, I’d bite. I know that Origami is supposed to take the Windows OS and “optimize” it for use on a UMPC, but that’s not the same thing as having an OS JUST for the UMPC and sub-notebook devices.

It’s back to Ubuntu for me as soon as I can install it!