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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.

20 January 2007 Reason #20: We don't want you to.

The quality of Microsoft software engineering has long been called into question. Seriously: even McDonalds do a good job at what they set out to do but Microsoft, the kings of mediocre software, can't even do that right.

But poor quality turned into something dangerous in the new millennium. Already in May 2000 people everywhere saw the results of relying on such slipshod technology. The ILOVEYOU worm, unleashed by accident into the wild from a technical institute in the Philippines, caused worldwide damage in excess of $5.5 billion.

And yet that statistic is only a small part of the story. For everywhere foolish Windows users were in a panic (and yes the worm only affected Windows) and caused a storm of Internet traffic that even those intelligent enough to use other platforms were hurt by.

But ILOVEYOU was only a 'worm': it didn't bring down the Internet by a sudden surge in traffic and it didn't bring down individual computers by attacking them remotely. That type of attack wouldn't appear until the summer of 2001 - the summer of Code Red.

Code Red was a new type of Internet malady named after a soft drink in the US by the research team that first happened upon it. Code Red went out and directly attacked Windows computers connected to the Internet - and overwhelmed them, and turned them into 'zombies' that thereafter went out attacking on their own.

And everywhere people 'in the know' were in an uproar. No, they didn't risk being infected by Code Red - but their networks were besieged by all the mad traffic from millions upon millions of Windows computers infected by it.

Several went so far as to track down the computers of these witless people and visit them in the flesh and give them a piece of their mind. Others published form letters to be sent to the owners of Windows computers causing this damage. Everywhere there was a storm of protest not so much against Windows as against the clueless users who weren't more careful and kept using it.

The Internet's in bad shape today. And the people who care about its welfare literally have had enough with unconscionable Windows users. Yes, Bill Gates has strangled the market and made it difficult to see where the alternatives are, but Bill Gates would rather bully other companies than bother getting his engineers to do things ethically, and you the prospective Vista user do have alternatives.

If you go ahead and use Vista, don't count on making many friends online. You've already ruined the neighbourhood; the next phase will be outright war.

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