It's not getting better...

My whines about Windows Vista in my new Dell computer are being echoed by people with more knowledge and experience. Jim Coates in the Chicago Tribune is one of my favorite tech columnists and he is finding out the backward compatibility of Vista is a pain.

When Microsoft execs made the rounds before Vista arrived, they were full of assurances that moving the software you currently own over to Vista would be a cakewalk.

In theory, you would just give the program icon a right-click and open the Compatibility tab in the pop-up that appears. When you do this and it works, Vista dims, blinks and changes, and then advises you that it is taking away the trademark translucent windows, cascading windows and other new features you just spent hundreds of dollars buying.

Microsoft's geniuses probably think these messages sound helpful. Here's how they sound to me: "You can buy new software, Coates, or you can rot." [More]

All this hassle is to prevent me violating DRM [Digital Rights Management] (copying music/videos). But despite Microsoft's assurances that it works fine, the real world travails don't go away.

Meanwhile, as per the pattern, it seems MS didn't have the security problems completely nailed down when the product shipped, so we users are enjoying lengthy downloads of humongous updates.

Anyone who was still living under the illusion that the arrival of Windows Vista would mean a lessening of security holes for Microsoft to patch would have had rude awakening this month. Microsoft announced no less than 19 newly discovered flaws in its software, of which 15 are classed as critical. [More]

While businesses may be locked in by inertia, I think a few users (myself included) have reached our tipping point. Vista is a pain in the assembler, and MS has finally lost this frequent buyer.