Windows XP delivers another disappointment

[mr_a500]

No, no - don't change it. Microsoft has decided that this is the way you should be working. They know best. I always trust large capitalist corporations to decide what's best for me... and you should too. (yeah, right)

When Microsoft says things like "We design software to work the way you want to work", what they actually mean is "We design software to work the way we want you to work". I spent years trying to work the way I want and nearly went insane fighting Windows. The worst thing is that there's no way to boycott Microsoft. Every possible job you can get now requires you to use Windows. (unless you're one lucky MF)

[mr_a500]

some people get ticked off when someone slags off ms for some simple little thing they screwed up in the first place

I can understand that - if the user actually did screw it up themselves. But some people get even more ticked off when someone slags off someone who slags off MS for a load of bugs they found, and assumes that they don't know how to use Windows.

Personally, in the 10 years I spent in software development and consulting, I have found and documented hundreds (yes, hundreds) of annoying bugs and design flaws in Windows that have nothing to do with third party software. Then when I mention that Windows is buggy, I get annoying responses - usually from inexperienced teen gamers saying that I don't know how to use Windows. People should find out first if user actually did cause their own problems before just stupidly assuming.

I'm getting a bit off topic now, so I'll stop. :-)

[mr_a500]

I'd be more willing to bash Microsoft if every platform didn't have its own heaping piles of stupidity.

True, but the piles are highest at Microsoft ;-). It's not so much that there are bugs. Obviously there are bugs in every system and every software. It is the fact that there are so many and they are so obvious that you wonder how the biggest software company in the world can miss them year after year. Even that alone is not enough to bash Microsoft. It is that combined with Microsoft's evil buisness practices and arrogance and the fact that you can't ever get away from their software that makes me bash Microsoft. If I don't like McDonalds food, I just don't go there and everything's fine. If I don't like Microsoft software and decide not to support them, I can't get a job, I can't go to a bank, I can't buy groceries, I can't get a flight, I can't go to the hospital, and so on. Everything runs on Windows now.

For over a decade I never had a bank machine "crash" on me. Then I had bank machine crashes all over the place at different banks, different machines. I later found out (at a company conference) that the banks had switched to Windows. I also read stories by medical technicians at a Toronto hospital. They switched some medical computers from proprietory system to Windows. The technician wrote that compared to their old systems, the Windows ones are much slower and unstable and they crash occasionally.

I think the whole computer industry went to hell in the mid 90's.

Yes. Computers aren't a fun thing anymore. They're just boring commodities with no real innovation (for compatibility reasons of course). Wow, a new menu item in the latest software. Wow, a new graphic in the Start button. A "totally revolutionary" slightly faster CPU which will allow me to run a wordprocessor 10% faster. Whoopie.

[mr_a500]

...Even the Mac isn't all that great of an experience.

Yes and I only just learned that last year. For years, I thought Macintosh was great - probably because I never actually used one (just played around in stores from time to time) and I thought the OS looked amazing. Then when OSX was coming out (around the same time I was sick to death of Windows) I started to become obsessed with Mac. I was waiting for just the right time to buy one and while I waited I decided to upgrade my old A500. I became more and more amazed by what the old thing could do.

Anyway, when a friend got a brand new Mac, I went to their house to load my iPod. After a few hours I became sick with disgust (well, not disgust - that's reserved for Windows - maybe "depressing sickly sadness" :-(). It was way better than Windows of course, but it wasn't as fun to use as I thought. It's not just that I'm used to something else. Lots of things aren't as well thought out as they could have been. iTunes has some nice features mixed with some really stupid and frustrating "features".

I probably will eventually get a Mac (what other choice have I got?), but it won't be that exciting anymore. It'll just be like buying a waffle iron. Yay.