Well, Vista, I’d like to say it was at least an “interesting” ride, but it wasn’t — it was a complete and utter pain in the ass. Others will have to take up the torch to document the many, varying ways you can (quickly and easily) break a Vista installation beyond repair, but I’ll describe mine.

Who do you blame for the goof? Well, you could blame me (the Microsoft apologists and trolls will do this), blame Microsoft (the Linux and Mac fans will do this), or blame HP (the trolls will cling to this one, too). Take your pick as you read through this simple, five step plan for completely breaking a functioning Vista installation: Read the full story...

Microsoft has a disturbingly reliable tendency to follow the same pattern for every new market it decides to enter:

1. See a huge market and decide to break into it while pretending to express no interest.
2. “Suddenly” (after the requisite leaks to press and rumor-mill feeding) announce a brand new product. Flood the market with hype. Spend lots and lots of money on clever ads and commercials.
3. Release an actual first version. Compared to competitors, it is a piece of shit. It includes Microsoft-specific idiosyncrasies and caters to “big business” interests even at the expense of customers.
4. A small die-hard group of Microsoft fanboys goes apeshit over even the crappy first release and helps hype the product as the next “biggest thing since sliced bread.” The rest of the world chuckles and goes back to using the better stuff they were always used to.
5. Microsoft either exits the market after being completely crushed, or it gets a clue somehow and revises the product for a new release — the new release is generally “okay” but still not the best. Sadly, Americans are typically dumb enough that “okay” is good enough.

Think I’m making this up? Let’s look at the markets they’ve nosed into with varying degrees of success, following a universally, hilariously bad first entry: Read the full story...