I hate Windows XP.

To the rest of you who crawled out of 98/NT-land, yes, I'm sure this is supposed to be one impressive operating system, when compared to that Gatesian drivel you're used to dealing with.

It's not stable. At least my copy of it isn't. Sure, it doesn't drop dead, but the little ALT-TAB trick stops working after a number of hours of use, reducing me to manually sorting through windows. I'll just hit ALT-TAB one too many times, a huge window will briefly fill the screen and disappear, in some kind of software death-throe, and that will be IT for ALT-TAB. (Not to mention leaving the screen really screwed-up looking.) Perhaps this is some added thingy that Toshiba installed, but regardless, the effect is that I have to shut everything down, log out, and log back in again.

Also, ALT-TAB frequently doesn't even bring the selected application to the front. Sometimes, it leaves it second-from-front, with a blinking yellow icon, demanding I allow it redraw one more time. So it often takes two attempts to bring an application to the front. Really now, how incredibly difficult is this? Apparently, at Microsoft, this is very difficult stuff.

To add to the annoyance Microsoft's "Enterprise Manager", for some stupid reason, never shows up in the ALT-TAB icon list. Oh yes -- everything else is in there. But for some odd reason, somehow Microsoft designed "Enterprise Manager" to be this stealth, untab-able application. (I remember my peers constantly explaining that we needed to go with yet another MS app because it would be "more compatible" with the other MS apps. No, MS sometimes works very badly with MS, as anyone who's had experience with their old Fortran compilers can tell you.)

And, frankly, it's pesterware. This is by far it's most annoying feature, and in it, I can glimpse the dark, pointless, soul-destroying future of computing, in which you'll be force to interact with some infernal piece of adware every time you want to accomplish something:

User: clicks word processing icon

Computer: (In help balloon) "To start this application today, you'll have to watch an advertisment for dryer sheets, or swipe your credit card again. Choose!"

Computer: (In second help balloon) "New important banking news for you from Microsoft Trust, Ltd! Click here to see it now! Or click here to see it later!"

User: *($@%^#$#@@!!!

Windows XP has been constantly bugging me about something called "Updates" available for my computer. Finally, I acquiesed and installed them. I was warned I might have to restart my computer for them to take effect. No problem -- that'll happen eventually. I've been putting this off for months, what harm will another few hours do. I was told this might take a while, and it was suggested that I get some work done in the mean time. Okay, good enough.

So, in the middle of my work, Bill Gates' software spawn of hell informs me that the install has completed, and asks if I'd like to reboot now. No, like I said, I can do that later. Five minutes later, the dialog comes up again, informing me that it's almost done installing -- would I like to reboot now? No thanks again. Click. Five minutes later, again. Five minutes later, again. On and on.

And add to this the constant annoying barrage of messages from the toolbar. "You have network service." "There are updates available for Real Networks products." "You have lost network service." "Your network service is back." "There are updates available for your computer." "Your network service is turning a shade of taupe." "There are updates available for your computer."

Aaaaaagh!

And when you shut down, each open window flashes like -- what -- 30, 40 times? Active/inactive/active/inactive ... what perverse process is going on in there, that open windows need to be made active and inactive 30 times or more in order to just log off? And there are always a number of programs (and background processes of uncertain origin) which, like HAL 9000 singing "Daisy", seem to be balking at the idea of being turned off. "Yes, kill that now. Yes, kill that now. Yes, kill that now. No, I don't want to wait for it to decide how it feels today..."

This is what impresses people these days? Grrrr.