Melbourne, September 13: The problems plaguing Windows Vista at launch have actually been fixed, according to new tests conducted in the wake of Microsoft’s 300million-dollar marketing campaign to improve the operating system''s image.

US computer magazine Maximum PC decided to conduct the tests as Microsoft founder Bill Gates and comedian Jerry Seinfeld tried to "reconnect with real people" through the second advertisement of the campaign.

The journal ran extensive benchmarks comparing the original Vista to a version patched with the latest updates.

"From a performance, stability, and security standpoint, we''re satisfied with where Vista is today. You no longer need to sacrifice performance or stability if you want to run the latest version of Windows," the Sydney Morning Herald quoted the journal as telling about its findings.

Vista was plagued by frequent crashes, compatibility problems with both software and hardware, missing features and sluggish performance when Microsoft unveiled it in January last year.

The operating system was as much as 20 per cent slower than Windows XP at the time.

However, despite Microsoft fixing many of the issues through software patches, most people still consider Vista to be a faulty operating system.

Microsoft’s urge to improve Vista’s image compelled it to launch the 300million-dollar ad campaign.

A spokesman for the company has said that the ads will only run in the US for now, but the software giant hopes that they will catch on virally outside the country via the web. (ANI)