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So, we’ve had vista for a few months now. Personally, I haven’t started falling to my knees and bowing in praise to our benevolent Microsoft overlords. Ya’ll might have, but I’m just not feeling it. To me, there’s this disconnect between Vista and me thinking it’s just fuckin’ wonderful – and for this particular critique, I’m going to go with speed. Speed, which was a commodity in Windows XP, is now just one of the many sacrifices I’ve made for the sake of using Media Center.

And you know, I’m getting just a little tired of all these reviews of Vista – how it’s slow, buggy, looks like dog-shit and has an armada of half working features. Vista vaguely reminds me of when my grandma would mix boxes of jigsaw puzzles in to one container so she could get rid of some of the clutter in her closet. And yet, even with the entire OS ridiculed and pissed all over by everybody with a keyboard and an internet connection, most in the media don’t even bother to spit Gatsie’s dick out of their mouth when they say "it’s the best OS Microsoft has ever made.”

Wait for it…

OF COURSE IT IS! Jesus Christ, after 5 years of development, they sure as shit better have the best fucking thing they’ve ever made on that CD. Come on, it goes without saying. The real question is, if Microsoft is one of the biggest companies on this planet, and their flagship product is their major cash cow, and the competition is flipping free alternatives left and right that run on practically anything and that look pretty close to fantastic, shouldn’t Microsoft have shown up to the party with a little more than a stained glass window and a night stick?

Maybe I’m being too hard on it – WinFS is an awesome feature. You know, the searchable, database driven file system that replaced NTFS (which has been in use since 1998’s Windows NT 4). Oh wait, they shipped without it. Microsoft told me, in like 2003, that my file system would render results at lightning speeds with little more than a SQL query. Instead, they took MSN Desktop Search, removed the icon from the system tray, and put the search box in my start menu. Fuck, Microsoft – I could have done that! In 2003, they were screaming from the hill tops ‘NO MORE FOLDERS!’ WinFS will make files and folders obsolete… January 30’Th came along, they’ve got nothing. Seriously, folks – they don’t have a damned thing.

Then, to add insult to injury, they were hyping up Aero, and how it would make my computer look pimped without even the slightest performance hit. Funny, my Windows Vista Home Premium laptop runs a hellofalot better in classic mode. And the weird thing is, it looks better too. That’s not to say that glass doesn’t look nifty – but maybe, just maybe, they could have given some thought on a theme that didn’t make most Windows XP applications look like… well… Firefox on Vista – It’s a fucking train wreck. I actually stopped using Firefox. Not because IE7 is a better browser, because trust me – it’s so not, but simply because I couldn’t stand looking at it for more than a minute. It looked that bad. Vista makes my software look so bad that I’ll risk getting a virus and spyware just so it look so bad.

Thanks Microsoft. Thank you for that.

Then, as if Microsoft doesn’t have enough of my money, they decide to release fifty different SKU’s of vista. There’s Starter Edition, Home Basic, Home Premium, Business, Ultimate and Enterprise – and one for the EU without all the bloat. I want that one! And those can be broken down further – there’s the OEM versions that you have to buy over and over again when you replace your motherboard, the upgrade editions you can’t run a fresh install with unless you want to upgrade a fresh install of Home Basic, and the full editions that cost too fucking much. Let me revolutionize your marketing plan, Microsoft…

Instead of fifteen SKU’s, how about we knock em’ down to one. We rename Windows Vista Ultimate to Windows Vista, and we go on ahead and sell the full version of that. I’d pay, I don’t know, $100 for it. Seriously, cut the bullshit – one fucking operating system. ONE FUCKING OPERATING SYSTEM. Are you listening? ONE! Not 15 – 15’s a horrible number, You can’t even buy 15 Xbox 360 titles – Most cell phone carriers won’t even offer 15 phones. 15 SKU’s? Are you mad? What in the hell are you guys trying to prove? That Microsoft is the champion of confusing the hell out of people? Mac OS X has ONE SKU. I wonder if every version of Windows comes with a x86 and an x64 version? Well shit, that’s what -30 SKU’s? You sure as shit can’t buy 30 Xbox titles.

And you wonder why people aren’t rushing to the stores to buy it? Between the half-baked features, the speed and stability, and the fact that Vista sliced my Quake 4 frame rates in half, and not to mention choosing which version of vista you need out of the dozens they offer and then installing the fucker, I’m fairly sure you guys have absolutely no idea what the fuck your doing up there.

If I had half the brains of Jim Alchin, the guy who headed up Redmond’s Windows Vista project, I would have bought an iMac months ago. I’m guessing he did – right after he quit Microsoft, on Vista’s release day. I know he wrote an e-mail to Bill Gates saying if he didn’t work for Microsoft, he’d be using one by now. That guy might be creepy as all hell, but he knows a sinking ship when he sees one.

And don’t tell me I haven’t used Vista enough, either – I’m writing this in Word 2007 on my Windows Vista Home Premium box. At least Media Center doesn’t suck out loud. I swear to god, If Microsoft bombed Media Center, I’d switch to Ubuntu and never look back. I swear to god, Media Center is the only reason I bought Vista. Ask anybody.

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