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.

The Vista OS is so over-blown that Microsoft has had to chop it to six different versions — none of which work — not at least until you spend thousands of rupees more in equivalent hardware upgrades. After this you will get a system which will occasionally work, but you will also suffer more crashes than a Grand Prix, a Windows live service you that you cannot dislodge with a ballistic missile and a brand new Aero interface which lets you scrolls through blue screens, red screen, black screens, pop-ups, security warnings and endless ‘Yes/ No’ questions in eye-popping 3D.

This is not enough, however, to torture users and developers at Microsoft definitely did not stop at Vista users just wanting to blow themselves up with a very short fuse. They also decided that Vista should not have anything close to antivirus software or firewalls. They probably thought “What! Put in software that actually works in Windows? Impossible!” So what Vista has instead is ‘Windows Defender’, which as soon as it detects a virus, gets to work using the very high-tech, thrice patented DCS technology which is an Acronym for ‘Doesn’’t Catch Anything’. Microsoft got its inspiration for Defender by looking at the technology that the Swiss use in their industry. Thus, now beating the Swiss at their own game, Windows Defender software has got more holes in it than Swiss cheese.

Microsoft’s paradigm of totally ignoring the requirements and needs of the customers has become the gold standard for today’s biggest companies. Vista is little more than Windows XP with more visual and pleasant bugs. It has created its own impact in the industry, however. The IT guys I deal with day-to-day are of one mind regarding Vista: A big NO.

Microsoft’s advertising tagline for Vista is “Clear, Confident, Connected: Bringing clarity to your world.” I just wished they had just aimed to bring a decent OS to the market. Maybe then the number one Microsoft’s Vista FAQ would not have been “How do I get my money back?”