Fear and Loathing with Windows Vista
Ok: so far I have been wondering if there's a reason why Windows Vista has gotten bad rap. I mean, up until now. No wonder any more -- I have tried using Vista for past week or so. And now it is quite clear why people might hate, despite and loathe it. My number one guess: it sucks like no tomorrow.
I mean: a simple thing like printing to a network printer is apparently beyond capabilities of this marvel of engineering. At work I tried printing a 2 page document to a network printer. Workflow for this task goes like so:
- Ask Vista nicely to locate printers in da hood: it will find 9 out of 200+ printers there are, none of which is in the same building; I am not entirely convinced these are not just random names drawn out of some sw engineers a$$. At any rate, none is a real printer within building I work at.
- Lend Vista a helping hand (first with just one finger raised...): tell it IP name to have a look at.
- Stare at the popup that claims it has no idea what type of a printer this might be; offering a not-so-helpful list of 79 known printer manufacturers, most with 500+ types of printers
- Go check the actual type of printer (from its side), write it carefully down
- Cross-check with list Vista gave you: notice that there is no such printer amongst thousands listed (I wonder if these are even real printers... maybe they were just generated using Jabberwocky)
- Try using something that is as close to the actual type as possible (same manufacturer, same product line, same number, couple of same letters)
- Try printing
- Observe Vista producing to print a stack of paper thicker than your local phone book -- likely because it saw no problem in seding Postscript file to what appears to be a PCL printer.
- Count your blessing when half-way through printing there is paper jam that prevents some of paper waste
- Wonder out aloud how is it that previous versions of Windows managed get above (minus printing tons of crap; replaced with printing out the actual doc) done with fewer steps. As does MacOS; and even Linux.
Now, some of you may think I just made above up. I so wish this was the case, but no, it is a sad but true story. And the rest (who heard me curse, and wave that stack of paper angrily, in general direction of my laptop); pardon my french. Yes, that kind of language is not suitable for corporate setting, I know. Next time I will use my mother tongue for expressing my true feelings.
I don't know if there is already a law outlawing manu(factu)re, distribution and selling of Vista. But if not, I sure hope Obama admistration considers it a crime punished by something severe. Like having to use Vista for all your work, for term to exceed 20 years. Without parole.