Dear Windows 7,
First, I want to thank you for confirming my hatred for all things that slink out of Redmond, Washington, you have my gratitude. For a few hours there, I really thought I was going to bury the hatched with Microsoft, but then you showed me the truth and for that, I owe you one.
After you finally installed (and what took so long, were you on the phone with your Grandmother? Sheesh!) I thought I was looking at Vista RC2 with a snappy task bar.
The new taskbar was pretty neat, keeping all the instances together under one icon and letting me “pin” it there as a shortcut for the future. But then I realized something horrible; I have no control over this taskbar! My two-year old daughter is easier to control than this taskbar!
Unlike the taskbars in KDE, I can’t re-size you the way I want, I can’t center you, I can’t even figure out how to make you semi-transparent! I would forgive you that, if you could do the snappy things that the Mac’s taskbar does, but you don’t even seem to be giving it any effort at all!
I’m not impressed with your Start menu either. Was Vista’s menu so awesome that you decided to copy it? Sorry, but it’s not that awesome.
Your “Search programs and files” feature looks like a nice way to cut through the clutter of the “All Programs” menu, but it’s not. I deleted the “Internet Explorer” icon (cause I really don’t like viruses, sorry!) and had to find the stupid program manually in the Programs folder in order to use your website to download an update manually. That’s not helpful at all.
Let’s talk for a second about the Control Panel. Was it necessary to remove a link to the Control Panel from the Desktop right-click menu? And speaking of the right-click menu, just how is it all that different from Vista?
Now, I know you aren’t in charge of the whole “Gadgets” feature, but who else am I to hold responsible here? You took a wonderful idea (from Mac again!) and cut the legs out from under it.
I mean, I love being able to find third-party gadgets online for free and all, but why couldn’t you integrate your gadgets with Google’s gadgets like everyone else? Is that a “upgrade” you have planned for later? If so, you should find something else to fix, ’cause I can get Google’s stuff on my own, thank you very much.
Finally, I am very happy that, unlike your sister Vista, you don’t ask me a thousand times if the latest app I installed can have access to my computer, my hard drive, my internet connection and my saved passwords file (I only have one password: “God”, without the quotes of course).
Instead, you do have one of the most asinine habits I’ve ever encountered: I installed Hulu Desktop today. It installed fairly quickly with no warnings, but when it started to run, you stopped it and told me that it may not have installed correctly.
You then offered to reinstall it the right way, if I wanted. I did want, and the installation went just as smoothly as before and this time the program ran.
My question to you is this: Why the hell didn’t you install it correctly the first time instead of making me do it twice?!?
I swear, dealing with you is like trying to keep a brain-damaged monkey from humping a telephone pole; it’s frustrating and doesn’t seem to accomplish anything.
In the end, I wish you all the luck, but for now I think I’ll take my laptop and go see what KDE4 is up to. Bye!
Sincerely Yours,
A Friend (NOT!)