After running Microsoft’s new operating system for a while, I’ve started accumulating a list of annoyances. A very long list. It’s not up to 1,001 items yet, but it’s growing rapidly enough. I’m sure it will get there.
Brief disclaimer: I’ve never been a Windows-basher, nor a Microsoft-basher. I’m a Windows user. Maybe even a Windows fan. And it’s as such that I offer these comments… Call it constructive criticism. Nobody wanted Vista to be the perfect OS more than I did, and nobody hopes that its flaws will be fixed more than I do.
Unfortunately, nobody at Microsoft has so far ever taken any of my suggestions. I once sent them a long list of things that needed doing in Word, about eight or nine years ago, when they actually maintained a “wish list” Web site. Now, as someone who writes for a living, and who writes about computers, and who is a graduate engineer, you might think I might hit upon one or two intelligent thoughts on how to build a word processor. However, the sad fact is that none of my ideas have been adopted so far. Shocking, isn’t it? (See my next list, “10,001 Improvements Needed in Word 2007.”) Still, one lives in hope. Microsoft used to be the company that succeeded by shamelessly sucking up to its customers. Let’s hope that old spirit is still alive somewhere under the corporate veneer.
Obviously, this is a personal list. Some things I hate, others will like. The point isn’t whether everybody likes every feature of Vista, or hates the same ones I do, but whether a large number of features are “hate-able.” It’s not easy to please everyone, but I think it’s possible to please more people more of the time. That’s what you call design. (By the way, if I find as I go along that I’m discovering numerous things I really love about Vista, I’ll be glad to start another list. So far, though, no danger of that.)
So, without further ado, here’s… “1,001 Things I Hate About Windows Vista.”
