Computer Frustrations

I’ve been really frustrated with my Windows Vista box. When I first got the machine, last summer, I loved Vista. Now, with each day, I tend to loathe it more and more. This is due to many frustrations I have with it.

Things seem to freeze all the time. Whether it’s Internet Explorer (yes, I use it to check the compatibility of websites I work on), Windows Explorer, Windows Sidebar, or pretty much anything else. I don’t run a lot of programs at once and have 2gb of RAM (which Windows while idling uses about 44% of) and these things still freeze.

Things just don’t work. Windows Media Center is a piece of crap and can’t play DVDs without freezing or taking forever to load. I went to burn a cd this morning using Nero and clicked “Burn” forgetting to put in the cd. No problem, Nero notified me and I put in the blank disc. What’s that? Windows decided to drop the drive altogether? Nice. So then I had to reboot the machine so it would pick up drive. All to burn the cd.

Another factor weighs in on my continuing hatred for Vista. My MacBook. While I do find some faults with OSX, for the most part, it’s a good OS. It’s fast on my MacBook, there’s good software, and the look and feel is great. And I never run into any of the problems I run into on Windows. My next desktop computer is going to be a Mac. Too bad that won’t be for a while.

I could install Linux on it, which I do have Ubuntu installed via Wubi, but I don’t want to have to do a lot of work to get something to just work. I don’t want to go around the bend to get my ATI card to work to it’s full potential all while sacrificing other aspects of an environment I like (If I want to use the ATI drivers for desktop effects I can’t play games or have a screensaver because the screen flickers while doing those things). Too bad OSX won’t work on PC hardware (without mass amounts of hackery).