Windows Vista

Most everybody uses Windows, partially because Macs are too expensive to use for anything other than graphics, web, video editing, and the music industry. Because most of the software we use would have to be made specially for use on a Mac, and most people just don't have a million dollars for that, Windows is the choice. It's interesting to know that most people have the same complaints about it. But when Microsoft came out with the successor to Windows XP in January 2007, most of us were like "oh hell, no!", even before we first used it! The Operating System is pretty, no question of that, however complaints were/are many; among them being:

• General unease-of-use
• The lack of drivers and general support for programs and hardware that worked with XP
• The OS's outrageous minimum system requirements (1GB of RAM, 40GB of hard drive space just to install it?! WTF?!!)
• Buried menus and shortcuts that people were used to in XP
• DRM
  
• The so-called upgraded system security that were supposed to make Vista safer to use

Exhibit A:



What you're very likely to see every time you choose a command, tap a key on the keyboard, etc...

I will cover a couple of the issues here; hit me up later for others...

About the system requirements issue: In mid-to-late 2006, Microsoft started putting stickers on PCs, stating that the unit was ready to run Vista right out of the box. What they didn't say was that it could only run Vista Basic (the one without all the cool, see-through windows; Home Premium and Ultimate are see-though but require a much better and much more expensive graphics card to do so, not to mention more RAM memory and more hard drive space) with the minimum requirements, resulting in you giving up more of your hard-earned money to them! So like all other companies, Microsoft lied! Are you as shocked as I am???

Exhibit B:



If you bought a PC with this sticker on it, thinking you were good right out of the box for Vista, you got snookered, big time!

As it concerns the DRM: DRM stands for Digital Rights Management. What this means is that while you can use Vista to record all kinds of media, Microsoft, as well as Apple and many other companies, basically retain all the rights to tell you how you can share what you record with others, because they work hand in hand with many movie studios and TV production houses. It's also for this reason that when recording programs list their system requirements, they tell you exactly what kinds of graphics and sound cards you have to have to use the software! Pretty smart...and just a little diabolically clever!

These are among the reasons that when people got a new computer, they downgraded back to XP. Hey, why mess with something when your stuff was working to begin with, right? To be fair, Vista has fared better that Apple's Mac OS X Leopard, with Leopard having at least 255 virus attacks since its debut compared to Vista's total of 5(!), though this was probably due to all those "are you sure you wanna do this?" dialog boxes you get when you try to do something... And just try to get a LAN party going with those who play Quake III, Call of Duty 2, World of Warcraft III, Counter-Strike, or Unreal Tournament using a Mac!

As for Internet Explorer, it's only the single worst piece of crap browser ever, and needs to die! Seriously! Back in the day, it was the shit; only losers used Netscape for browsing back then. But nowadays man, it just has too many vulnerabilities and errors to ever again realistically be considered for browsing the web. I mean, every time I tried to use it, it would lock up and would have to close, so I decided (a bout 2 years ago) to "sell out" and get a good browser, called Mozilla Firefox, and I never looked back. I suggest you all do the same, ASAP!

Exhibit C:



You'll see this every time you attempt to look at anything on the web using Internet Explorer

Recently, Microsoft has been saturating my TV with commercials about something called "Windows Mojave", which ended up just being an experiment which featured various participants. They were asked about their overall perception of Vista, having never used it before, and were then shown a 10-minute demo of Microsoft's next Windows OS, codenamed "Mojave". When this experiment was over, it was revealed that Mojave was actually just Vista, with the goal of the experiment being to get consumers to "decide for themselves" rather than just outright accepting the generally negative views of Windows Vista. Basically, they lied to a bunch of people to show them that Vista ain't "that bad". How low can you get?

With Windows 7 on the horizon, I don't hold out much hope for it to not be a piece of crap; Microsoft seems hell-bent on not giving customers what we long for. I guess since they own stock in Apple, we won't be getting what we want anytime soon...