I know that Windoes 7 can be ultra stable and reliable. I have used it for mor than 2 years, and it was rock solid.
Now I know that it can be made to be unreliable, unstable, and glitchy.
Where I work, there are all kinds of additions. Full disk encryption, Symantec Endpoint Protection, a software lifecycle and inventory system, and some really bizarre policies that have the machine doing multiple command shell scripts at inopportune times.
All this leads to weirdness in the install (note: I would never try to circumvent these things. I do live with it).
THree times ( in three months ) the OST file has become corrupted. Fortunately there is a utility that can fix it. But it is a pain in the arse to run. I have to shut down several programs that “touch” the OST file, and I have to remember where they all are. Groan.
Twice now, it has done a forced full scan for malware and viruses. This happens on the first wednesday of the month. Two of the three times it has run, there has been a bout a 2.5 hour delay as it barfs on a file (in an email cache in AppData). This leads the full scan to be about 9 hours. Painful, to say the least.
This morning, I had all these issues come to a head. An Acrobat update (forced restart), a corrupted OST (forced restart), and an update to my copy of 1Password (a third forced restart). Here I am, roughly one hour into the day, and I finally can get some work done. Sigh…
