1) I read the ‘fineprint’ of MS Vista and I accordingly purchased a laptop that could run Vista (superbly) for under $1,500.

That said, my experience on said computer system has possibly been biased because with my computer’s specs, I can comfortably use all the shiny bells and whistles that Vista has.

However, your criticisms are absolutely valid, but I don’t think that Microsoft misled anyone about the specs that would be required to run their operating systems to its potential.

Vista as a business utility, is not viable because of those same bells and whistles that I like so much. Right now, I can barely run certain programs on an XP desktop at my office!

In a nutshell, I’m not very knowledgeable about the inner workings of the operating system. Microsoft marketed Vista in a shady way and it came back to bite them in the butt, plain and simple.

Thanks for your comment because it made me think about the reasons for supporting Vista.

First of all, most of the great “improvements” slow the system down. When you turn those off you get a system that is round about what Windows 2000 or Server 2003 (Volume Licenced) is.

Aero (Glass or Basic) is good-looking but slows performance, turning it off makes the system look like the classic Windows – you can’t win!

UAC was a good idea, but WTF screen-dimming? A simple window that does not steal focus would have been better. GNU/Linux learnt from this with the hideous gksu ages ago! So off that goes…

Also, more stupid processes are in the background than ever by default.

They added a crippleware malware scanner called Windows Defender which wastes Hard Disk and CPU time.

Then there’s the ghastly and ineffective System Restore that started life in ME and managed to survive in XP.

From a business standpoint, large enterprises now need an extra server in their backroom to manage product activations (nice?).

Naturally.. the biggest problem with Vista is Microsoft’s assume-all-users-are-pirates initiative. Yet, it’s easily possible to null a copy of Server 2008 which Microsoft offer as an evaluation on their website.

Windows 7 fixed the UAC problem but overall it won’t be much better judging by the BETA.

All that adds up to a rotten experience. When Windows 2000 is no longer supported GNU/Linux will probably be the only OS I use. (Or maybe OpenSolaris when it has matured to where other OSes are at)