Hasta La Vista

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  I have always been positive about and embracing of new software from Microsoft. I am usually amongst the first to install the latest version of Windows, I am actively using .Net 3.5 for development, and I have been playing around with IE8 for a few weeks now. I even embraced the latest version of Office with it's bizarre ribbon toolbars, and once I spent way too long getting used to it I realised it was an infinitely better piece of software then previous versions of Office. I rarely regret my pioneering bent, and I usually ignore my detractors who keep telling me that Notepad is the best development environment, and that I should convert my XBox into a Linux server.

   

  So it is with sadness in my heart that after suffering 5 months of Windows Vista I reached the last straw last night and decided it has to go. I downloaded a zip file from a website and asked Vista to simply unpack it to a folder on my desktop. After Windows Explorer had "stopped working" 5 or 6 times midway through the unzipping I thought maybe the archive file was corrupt. However a friend using XP had it extracted in a matter of minutes with no issues. I then thought maybe it would help if I tried to unpack the file a few folders at a time. That went well until Vista decided that some of the files may damage my computer and refused to go any further. There was no "shut up and mind your own business" button that I could press to ignore the OS and it's whining. It just quit. A lot of Googling later and I discovered the Vista "unblock" button and pressed it in hopeful anticipation. I restarted the extraction and waited all of about 3 minutes before Windows Explorer decided to set up base camp for the night again.

   

  It was the final straw for me after months of intense irritation with Vista. I strongly believe in progress, but what sort of progress gives us a slower, more cumbersome, less user friendly, and generally less unusable successor to what was a perfectly fine operating system in the form of XP? As much as it hurts me I'll be clearing down my laptop tonight and raiding MSDN for some funky retro OS such as Win2003!! I'm even wondering if that old XBox in the corner could be revitalised with some vintage accessories....a funky Red Hat perhaps?

  Tuesday, October 14, 2008 9:26 AM