just to preemptively counter some textbooks that may be overly idealistic or flat-out out of date...

consider the following four combinations:

a) properly written kernel mode drivers written in an os with weak kernel mode security (xp, with most hardware combinations).
b) kernel mode drivers written for an os with weak kernel mode security being run in an os with strong kernel mode security, and that expects almost all drivers to run in user mode. (vista/7/8, with some hardware combinations)
c) badly written user-mode drivers written in an os with strong kernel mode security, and that expects almost all drivers to run in user mode. (vista/7/8, with some hardware combinations)
d) correctly written user-mode drivers written in an os with strong kernel mode security, and that expects almost all drivers to run in user mode. (vista/7/8, by design)

the reality will agree with the textbook in stating that a is faster than d, on the same hardware - meaning xp is faster by design, but less secure (that's the trade-off). again, windows 7 on faster hardware may seem faster than windows xp on slower hardware but that's an apples and oranges comparison that reduces to an actual comparison of the hardware.

but the situation i'm talking about is with either b or c, which are both going to be slow and buggy and which is still the reality with some hardware.

if you think back to '06, vista had a horrible reputation. this is the actual root of the problem. microsoft understood it perfectly well. it's support agents (one of whom was me) understood it perfectly well. the hardware companies understood it perfectly well. but part of my job was confusing people into blaming intel or nvidia instead of microsoft. which isn't to say that they didn't share the blame. but that was microsoft's official strategy - fuck the issue, lie to the customers. they saw it as a pr game.

i can't count the number of times where i nearly broke down and just leveled with the poor bastard on the other side of the line. but, given that everybody understood that the problem had no solution, my job was to ensure that the person walked away from the conversation blaming the person that made their board or chipset or video card, rather than the company that made an operating system that changed all the industry standards without proper documentation or sufficient warning.

again, though, it's eight years on, now. there's no excuse for it still being a problem.

so, that's actually something else to take away from this: if support agents can solve your problem, they will. if they can't, they will lie to you - and get promoted if they're really good at it.

going back to the usb test, i should point out that my pc actually has a faster processor, surprisingly, given that the chip is from 2005. my pc is a pentium D @ 2x3.6. the laptop is an i5 @ 2x2.4. the difference between ten minutes and 30 seconds is still incredible, though, and can't be explained purely by the processor speed. especially given what i know about the way the drivers work...