1. Norton Antivirus is not Microsoft’s fault. Blame the OEM, uninstall it, and slap AVG on there.

2. Microsoft Word 2007 starts up faster than OpenOffice.org for me. (Both the Linux AND Windows versions of OO.org)

3. IE6 is obsolete. Update your freaking computer; the Windows Update website had a link to the installer for IE7 last time I checked. Or install Firefox; it’s not hard and well worth avoiding the hustle of IE.

4. Right click on taskbar. Hit properties. Click the Start Menu tab. Click “Customize”. Click “Small icons.” Click OK. Click “Classic Start menu.” and hit “apply.”

5. So, switch to a blank blue background and your beloved Windows Classic style.

6. Right click on the taskbar. Hit properties. Uncheck “Hide inactive icons.” Problem solved.

7. You’re complaining about the “My” in front of everything. Seriously? You are aware you can rename all that, right?

If you want to complain about Windows XP, do it right. Complain about how it starts running slow and needs to be rebooted every two weeks or so. Complain about how horrible all the desktop file search software for it is. Complain about how it can become almost unusable if a ton of things are open at once, but Linux doesn’t.

But seriously? That’s quite possibly the worst list of things wrong with Windows I’ve ever seen.

Windows really isn’t the issue. I like both Windows 2000 and XP. Haven’t used Vista much at all. Anyway, Windows is a victim of it’s own popularity. Lots of people use it, so that means lots of ignorant people use it. You should realize with your ties to the Ubuntu community that it is already creeping up on it as well.

Users blindly install packages, add repos and execute commands/code written by strangers on the forums. Imagine it on a much much larger scale. Websites with malicious Firefox extensions, packages, etc. Eventually Norton would have a Linux security suite with “TERMINAL WATCH”, “REPO PROTECTOR”, among all the other “safe guards” people need. Doesn’t help that many new Linux users have a false sense of security running as a normal user. They forget most of the stuff they actually care about is in ~/! Completely readable and writable to any all trojan, spyware, etc.

Now I do prefer Linux but it has less to do with many of the common “problems” with Windows. I use it because it’s has more features that are appealing to me. Package management, terminal, control, etc. For the curious: Archlinux (home), XP (work), OS X (notebook). First distro was Slackware in 98.

I usually also disable most of the XP “effects” with exception of transparent desktop icon titles. I want my desktop fast and snappy – I don’t really care how it looks.

Another thing I always disable is the “group similar tasks” function that collapses similar windows into a single taskbar item. Infinitely annoying.

Oh, and try Office 2007. It’s almost twice as slow as any of it’s predecessors. In the past, MS Office used to open faster than Open Office on Windows machines (eh, I love Java but I hate it). OO.org has improved, and MS seems to be trying to close the gap, and eventually perform slower than OO one day.