How bad was it?

In a comment to a previous post, enrevanche pal John V. asks for more specific details about what's wrong with Microsoft Vista.

I responded:

It's bloated and a complete resource pig; it's slow, and it still feels very unstable.

I realize that it's "beta" software, but they've been working on this project since before XP was released (admittedly, abandoning much of the code in 2004 and starting over from the Windows Server 2003 codebase.)

And my overall impression after living with the new OS and productivity applications for a few days is: the baby is ugly.

Really, really ugly.

Just how bad is it?

Well, after spending the weekend with the "future" of Microsoft, I went out Sunday afternoon and bought a Mac... one of the Intel Core Duo-based laptops.

Apple's Boot Camp installed flawlessly, and it took me a little over three hours to get the machine configured (with both operating systems and a minimum set of required applications) to run both Mac OS X and XP Pro.

The future IT plans for the Campbell family involve, insofar as is possible, the avoidance of Microsoft operating systems and productivity applications. (The sole reason I've got XP installed right now is for Microsoft Visio, although in all fairness I may have to start using Project again soon.)

Here's what my workspace looks like this morning: