Windows Vista won't be able to take advantage of new solid state drives (SSDs) from SanDisk as the chief exec said the OS presents "special challenges".

Speaking about the company's second quarter financial results, Eli Harari believes the next level of SSDs, which will use multi-level cell technology to expand the frontiers of flash-based memory all the way up to 250GB.

Using a SSD in a PC or Mac makes perfect sense, given its shock absorbency and rugged nature; however in reality Vista is not able to use the drives effectively, where Macs have had no problem.

Vista: not looking ahead

"As soon as you get into Vista applications in notebook and desktop, you start running into very demanding applications because Vista is not optimized for flash memory solid state disk," Harari said.

He credited this problem with Vista to the OS' desigen, despite Windows always having been clearly aligned with hard drives and using the systems embedded in them to work efficiently.

"The next generation controllers need to basically compensate for Vista shortfalls," he said.

Harari also stated that this problem was forcing delays at SanDisk, as the company did not foresee the limitations.

"In very low-end, ultra low-cost PCs, existing controllers can get the job done for 8-, 16-, and 32-gigabyte storage because these are relatively unsophisticated and demanding requirements," he said.