Windows VistaSo if its something I really feel passionate about, Ill blog it. Windows Vista, isn’t really as bad as some people are making it out to be.

One popular CNET Blogger wrote an article titled Why Microsoft must abandon Vista to save itself. Some highlights from the article:

The first indication that Microsoft should abandon Vista is its poor sales figures….
SP1 will do nothing but fix the holes and issues we currently know about and create even more. As we all know from the days of Windows ME and even XP, Microsoft is not the best company at finding and addressing security issues, and chances are, Vista will be no different….

I also find it interesting that Microsoft decided to take the user access control concept from Mac OS X and make it much worse. Can someone please explain to me why I need to be asked if I wanted to do something entirely innocuous like open a third-party app from a well-known software company?…

Of course, categorically dumping an operating system is quite difficult and with millions already using the OS, chances are Microsoft won’t find a good enough reason to do it. And while I can understand that argument, there’s no reason the company can’t continue to support Vista and go back to the drawing board for its next OS. Even better, go back to XP–it’s not nearly as bad as Vista….

The time is up. Microsoft must abandon Vista and move on. It’s the company’s only chance at redemption.

It really is a ridiculous statement to tell Microsoft to abandon Windows Vista. Its not very realistic at all – Microsoft wont just jump ship on its project its been working for for so many years and just admit its a flop. It isn’t all that bad really – it still works as a bloated OS.

However there are a few pet hates of Vista that really do drive me nuts. Here they are:

1. User Account Control (UAC) – Usability is just shocking
There really isnt much to say about this other than its been a total flop. I mean why do I have to confirm twice that ‘Yes I do want to open disk defrag’ when I just double clicked on it?!. It is ridiculous. I mean, I always saw the very funny the Mac OS ads for this:

But I never thought it would be that bad… It is!. There are many instructions on how to turn off Windows Vista UAC, although its not really recommended – it could save you around 24 hours of your life clicking on ‘allow’ prompts.

2. Windows Live Update – Can you stop selecting everything?!
Ok, thanks Microsoft for allowing me to disable automatic updates, thats great. But every time I do run my manual updates, it selects all updates, even the non critical ones by default. So I have to go through and manually ‘un-tick’ (there is no select all/select none button) the ones that I don’t want, and run update. Of course the growing list of unwanted updates is getting bigger and bigger – and yes this is getting fustrating!

3. Windows Defender – Err… do you understand when I tell you don’t do automatic updates
So I also have automatic updates turned off for Windows Defender – but every now and then it comes up to tell me it hasn’t been updated – and sits in my system tray. Thanks… I get the picture…

4. Windows Explorer – what happened to my ‘alt’ menu bar?!
I really don’t like the new new ‘address bar’, and I cant see how I can turn it off. After some extensive googling, at the moment I dont think I can. I much prefer the old one, the new one takes twice as much space on my screen and is twice as annoying. And why do I have to press ‘alt’ to see my file, edit etc.. options – why can’t you just leave it there?!. This is the same with Windows Media player, and I presume a general implementation in explorer.exe.

5. Windows Explorer – No – this folder isn’t an MP3 / Media folder!
Argh, It loves to think it is! – But its not!, And why can’t I change it to view all the normal columns? Instead I have to manually choose all the Windows explorer columns again!

6. For 5.12 Gig – you’d better be good!
I can’t believe this OS is 5 gig of disk space. Its a joke really, I barely use 50% of its features, and it takes that much disk space. All I am saying is that for 5 gig – it has to be good, and its not. I have heard on podcasts recently many people describing Windows vista as the ‘Windows ME’ equivalent. I can see why – all for what? Areo? – The Areo theme isn’t really that good anyways, and the Mac has had that style of GUI for such a long time.

I’ve been reading a lot about driver issues with Vista – and thats the real big issue. I haven’t experience too many issues my self, as I bought a new PC with Vista, but yeah I’m sure that would be number seven on my list if I had been upgrading.

Microsoft, thank you for making me decide that on my next PC purchase, I will defiantly consider buying a Mac. I have a friend who just switched over from PC to Mac, and has been showing me all the great features of a Mac – I think I’m going to make the move!.