Microsoft has really outdone itself in delivering a brand new operating system that really excels in all the areas where Microsoft has been the king for eons, namely developing OS which are slow, sluggish and do not work. Of course, expecting more from a computer company whose OS turns off by pressing a button called ‘Start’ is really pushing faith in miracles to the limit.

As a core ‘Microsoftie’ who has been through the 10 products or so that have been the Microsoft experience, I can safely vouch for the fact that no one does bloatware better than Microsoft, not even our politicians who, as you know, are full of hot-air. Vista is actually so maddening that you would want to fly up to Redmond, USA to throttle Bill Gates. This, of course, would be impossible because if you actually purchased a licensed copy of Vista you will not have any money left to do anything for the rest of your life and might want to think about parting with one of your kidneys to feed your family over the next one year or so, given the prices of food being what they are these days. On the other hand, if you installed a pirated version of Vista from our local CD shops, you might want to think about parting with both your kidneys and the house for the upgrade in hardware required running Vista optimally.

If I read Microsoft right, their reason for Vista was simple — they wanted to create the most tortuous Windows experience possible beyond anything they have developed before. Learning from history and experience, they borrowed learnings from CE, Windows ME and Windows NT and made Windows (code named) ‘cement,’ an OS designed specifically to sink users into deep depressions and weigh systems down like a stone. Keeping up with tradition, they also decided to give their OS a fancy name afterwards (since ‘cement’ would not sell). And as with everything that Microsoft does, their marketing department, after extensive research, decided to give the new OS an exotic Latvian name for a ‘hen’ and called it Vista. Of course, it could also have been the fact that it was three years delayed in the coming so after the initial frustration of coming up with other names, the marketing department just called it ‘Vista’ for ‘Very Irritating System – Try Another’ or maybe ‘Volatility Isn’’t Something To Admire.’ Take your pick.