An Open Letter to Microsoft Vista
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Dear Vista,

vista-logo.jpgIt was all worth it. Despite what you may hear me say to other people, I really don’t regret a day of our time together. From the moment I picked you out at Circuit City — you clean black HP Slimline, you — to this moment, right now, 12 days later, where I’m burning my data to disk so I can leave you for good… I want you to know it was all worth it. I wouldn’t trade our time together for all the Macs in the world.

I needed to know the truth, and this was the only way.

I’d heard them talking about you. Everyone. Your friends were all calling you sleek, cool, and elegant. Friendly. Easy. My friends were calling you clumsy, arrogant, and greedy. A poser. Sleazy. I needed to know for myself.

I needed to know what it felt like to boot up to your pretty gradients and rich colors, to see how you organized things, to see if you really did learn a thing or two from your intelligent hipster cousin, the Mac. I needed to see for myself that you missed the boat. That you force Yahoo! Search in your toolbar instead of Google. That you boot up with more crap programs than I know how to clear away. That your “Arcade Games” folder actually takes the metaphor so far as to charge me each time I want to play them.

Have you learned nothing about how to treat people?

I was hopeful. I opened up IE 7, your teenage son who’s had a lot of growing up to do over these years, and I really thought for a minute that maybe you were on the right track.

But it turned out, I just needed to see for myself that you still make HTML-constrained images look pixelated and terrible, and that you force your kind Uncle Firefox to behave that way when he’s in your house, too. I needed to viscerally experience that you’re still politically opposed to anti-aliasing. And I’m not sure if I was relieved or appalled to learn that there is one browser that can now show beauty on your system. Only one. And it’s Safari. Did it sneak in the back door when you weren’t looking? Are you being infiltrated against your will? Should I feel sorry for you?

Oh, Vista. You try so hard. And I think maybe we could have been friends. But my Mac came back to me today, after its all-expense-paid vacation to the repair spa, and you know where my heart belongs. You know I could never really love you. And you know that I would have been happier if I’d bought a Mac Mini and run parallels to test my websites on you. You know it would have cost about the same. And you know that if it weren’t for the majority of Internet users being sucked into your monopoly and forced by goaded ignorance into viewing my websites in Internet Explorer, I’d forget you existed altogether.

You know it’s not me, it’s you.

And you know we’re not going to be friends after this.

But also I want you to know it was worth it. Because now the doubt in my mind is gone, and I know the truth: You’re still not ready for me.

Until we meet again…

Sarah

p.s. In case my prose here was too flowery to sink into your cluttered head, here’s all you really need to know: I’M LEAVING YOU FOR YOUR COUSIN.

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8 Responses to “An Open Letter to Microsoft Vista”

  1. Maria Niles Says:

    If only I could join you for a three-way with that cousin. Sadly, I think I’m just too lazy to leave Mr. Microboring for adventure.

    Congratulations on the return of your hot stuff! :)

  2. sarah Says:

    Oh Maria… there are SO MANY WAYS i could respond to that comment… I think I’m just going to go entertain myself by running through all of them in my head…. ho hum..

  3. Angsuman Chakraborty Says:

    A nice flowery article. Being a techie I was hoping more on the functionality differentiators for you.

    We (myself and my company) switched to Linux long time back. Initially it was harder to setup to my desire but then my desire was much more than anything I could imagine on Windows. Now I am all happy and satisfied. The rich functionality rocks the sock off windows.

  4. sarah Says:

    Thanks! To be honest, my relationship with Vista was kept rather superficial, and I didn’t actually dig deep enough into the heavier tech stuff to be able to complain about it. But I’m sure I’d have stuff to say on it if I had. :)

    Linux… thanks for the reminder… i’m toying with the idea of either scraping of Vista altogether and installing Linux, or partitioning the drive to dual boot. I wants me some sweet linux lovins.

  5. Angsuman Chakraborty Says:

    > i’m toying with the idea of either scraping of Vista altogether and installing Linux, or partitioning the drive to dual boot. I wants me some sweet linux lovins.

    I would say forget Vista :)
    Use a nice Linux distro like Fedora (my favorite) or Ububtu. You won’t feel you are missing anything. Don’t forget to install wine for the occasional Windows app or two.

  6. Michael Hendrickx Says:

    hahah.. nice letter!

  7. Nelz Says:

    It’s nice to see that someone I know has actually taken Vista for a ride and found it lacking. It gives me a much sturdier single-degree of separation to bash Vista from!

    Me, I knew it was going to be horrible so I stayed with XP when I was forced to use Windows, but the emergence of Vista actually motivated me to use both Mac and Linux as desktops as well…

    I guess what I’m saying is: thanks for taking that one for the team!

  8. Angsuman Chakraborty Says:

    I see no reason for any XP user to upgrade(?) to Vista. It is more resource hungry, has some UI affect and that’s pretty much it.