10 Reasons Why I Hate Microsoft Windows

Written by Mark Sanborn: Jan 18, 2008

Ok, here is my 10 reasons why I have Mircorosft Windows in no particular order and my suggestions on how to cope with them. Now don’t get me wrong I like windows for playing my games. I do use Linux as my main operating system; however, it is inconvenient to reboot into windows just to play games. So, sometimes I find myself using windows for weeks at a time. Out of my recent frustrations I thought I would post my top reasons for hating windows.

1. It rots faster than a jug of milk left in a hot car.

If you are not formatting/re-imaging windows AT LEAST once every 6 months I would guess your computer is running at about 50% efficiency. For most people that are infected with spyware/malware you are probably running at about 10% efficiency.

I suggest making an image of your computer after you install windows and configure it to your needs so you can restore it whenever you can without a big hassle. Of course this means you need to save your files on a partition/harddrive other than the one Windows resides on.

2. Windows deceives the user and tries to hide the truth to “protect/help” the user.

The first example of this is the My Documents, My Pictures, etc… They make a folder on the start menu or in My Computer. Most users don’t even know where their files are being stored they just know that they can save them in “My Documents”. I guess Microsoft is trying to help computer users be more organized by making folders for them but they are only confusing them. The downside to this is most people have all their files and data on the same harddrive/partition as the OS (Windows). This makes it harder to format every 6 months because you have to move them out of there. Wanna know what is really lame? Try removing My Documents… it can’t be done very easily and almost every program tries to force you to save your files there.

Another example of this is hiding file extensions. I guess they are trying to help the user by hiding it so they don’t get confused and don’t have to worry about renaming off the extension. Problem is that a lot of users don’t know about the extension and open exes/viruses.

I suggest saving your files on another drive/partition. The option to show file extensions are in the folder options under ‘view’.

3. It has such a monopoly that game developers won’t code for other operating systems

4. You can’t uninstall Internet Explorer completely.

Install Firefox or Opera. I currently favor Opera over Firefox since it is most compatible with web standards according to the acid2 test, the Fastest browser, the most secure, and also made in one of my favorite countries, Norway. ** 5. They don’t play nice with the other kids. Windows is notorious for not providing support for networking with other operating systems.**

6. All the default software that comes with Windows is bloated or unnecessary. An example of this would be Windows Media Player vs. Media player classic or VLC. I spend about 30 minutes after each fresh install of Windows XP just removing unnecessary programs and services.

7. It never activates by itself over the internet. I always have to call into to activate my windows software. The automated telephone service never activates it but the guy on the phone will activate it without asking me a single question about its legitimacy. This makes absolutely no sense to me. I waste about 15 mintues of my time every time I have to call in to Microsoft and sense I have to format every 6 months this is extremely annoying.

To bypass this headache I have resorted to making a ghost image of a clean install of XP.

8. Windows can’t delete a file that is in use (and sometimes can’t copy it). This is absolute blasphemy. Linux has been able to do this for years. Ever try copying over your/someone else’s 20gb+ My Documents? You start the copy then leave the computer for an hour or so only to come back and find a nice error that says it failed to copy a file. Thats nice and all but you didn’t have to stop in the middle of transferring all the OTHER files.

Thankfully there are programs out there that solve this problem.

End task doesn’t do anything (most of the time). Ever try to end a task in windows only to find yourself hitting the end task button a thousand times realizing the only way to end the task is to restart? When I was a Windows only user I thought this was normal. I thought sometimes things just go wrong and there is no way to end the program/processes without a good old fashion restart. When I was introduced to Linux I was amazed that their version of “end task” actually worked and was immediate. It is simple when you end a task in Linux it is gone instantly. Unfortunately I believe this has to do more with the way the core operating system works and I haven’t found a fix for this annoying problem in Windows. Every time a windows programs crashes it wants to send a useless report to Microsoft. Thankfully this is one of the things I disable after a fresh format. To disable it go to start > run > type services.msc then find error reporting and disable it.

Why do you hate (love) Windows?…

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