29 Reasons to Not Get Vista

Microsoft Windows Vista hits (assaults) consumers on 30 January 2007. Starting with New Years Day that gives you twenty nine days to think about the big mistake you're about to make.

Every day of January 2007 until Microsoft Windows Vista is released you can read yet another good reason why it's not a good idea to get it.

5 January 2007 Reason #5: It's Ugly.

There's but one way about it: Windows is ugly and Vista's only uglier. If you see what advancements in UI cool Apple and others have come up with and then look again at that lacklustre Windows interface that hasn't changed in ten years...

It's been that long, you see. That's the Windows 95 interface. It was supposed to be released in 1994 instead of 1995, but Microsoft have a penchant for getting a bit behind from time to time.

The window control buttons are rendered with an ugly font called Marlett - they're not graphic images at all. The window frames, the upper left title bar icon - it's all the same. Nothing's changed.

That tremendous overhaul you hear about is only a few lines of code in the non-client rendering - it's supposed to give you 'cool' transparency effects but it looks like shit. And it looks like shit for the same reason as always: although Bill Gates likes to steal and although Steve Ballmer can't count Microsoft's de novo innovations on his strap-on, they copy bad.

And with transparency they totally missed the boat - the point. Transparency is supposed to give further visual clues, not give the user a headache! Users of other systems are already aware of what transparency is, so Vista's not going to knock their socks off exactly. Make them vomit perhaps, but it's never going to impress.

Vista is a bad combination of bad UI widgets that long since needed a makeover but still don't get one and really crummy (and poorly programmed) UI effects that again as always with those thieves in Redmond totally miss the point.