performed worse under Vista. Many low-to-mid-end machines that come with Windows Vista pre-installed suffer from exceptionally slow performance with the default Vista settings that come pre-loaded, and laptop manufacturers have offered to "downgrade" laptops to Windows XP—for a price. However, this "price" is unnecessary, as Microsoft allows users of Windows Vista and Windows 7 to freely "downgrade" their software by installing XP and then phoning a Microsoft representative for a new product key. File operation performance When first released in November 2006, Vista performed file operations such as copying and deletion more slowly than other operating systems. Large copies required when migrating from one computer to another seemed difficult or impossible without workarounds such as using the command line. This inability to efficiently perform basic file operations attracted strong criticism. After six months, Microsoft confirmed the existence of these problems by releasing a special performance and reliability update, which was later disseminated through Windows Update, and is included in Service Pack 1. Nonetheless, one benchmark reported to show that, while improving performance compared to Vista's original release, Service Pack 1 does not increase the level of performance to that of Windows XP. However, that benchmark has been questioned by others within ZDNet. Ed Bott both questions his colleagues' methods and provides benchmarks that refute the results. Game performance Early in Vista's lifecycle, many games showed a drop in frame rate compared to Windows XP. These results were largely the consequence of Vista's immature drivers for graphics cards, and higher system requirements for Vista itself. By the time Service Pack 1 was released in mid-2008, gaming benchmarks showed that Vista was on par with Windows XP. However, games such as Devil May Cry 4, Crysis and Left 4 Dead stated that their memory requirements on Vista were 1.5x–2x higher than XP. Software bloat Concerns were expressed that Windows Vista may contain software bloat. Speaking in 2007 at the University of Illinois, Microsoft distinguished engineer Eric Traut said, "A lot of people think of Windows as this large, bloated operating system, and that's maybe a fair characterization, I have to admit." He went on to say that, "at its core, the kernel, and the components that make up the very core of the operating system, is actually pretty streamlined." Former PC World editor Ed Bott expressed skepticism about the claims of bloat, noting that almost every single operating system that Microsoft has