Oh Microsoft what are you doing these days? I'm trying to defend you, I'm trying really hard. I do all I can to stave off the Mac Attck that's going on in my office. Of our 5 partners 4 of them own Mac's. And they all like them. A lot. You know what they don't like, Vista

They tell me "but my Mac never crashes and boots in a flash". I can only counter with "your Mac can't do X or Y and Vista does" (please don't start a flame war over that, I'm trying to be general here). They grunt at me and sulk away, unhappy that not only are they right where they started but that their IT guy has to tell them this is just how it is. That really sucks for me now doesn't it? Yet I defend you still. Sure there are a lot of great things about Vista, but there really is no killer application that demands it. I moved us to Vista very quickly so we could all play with the "latest and greatest". Could it be that after a year it's biting us in the ass?

Lately I've patiently waited for Vista Service Pack 1. This is currently in beta testing and while I'm curious to see how it will be I've avoided the temptation to get an early copy. Beta service packs generally aren't a fun thing to play with. Then this morning I see an article with tests showing that XP is almost 3 times as fast as Vista running the latest beta service packs. Three times. Then Jason emails me the article, obviously pointing out to me that "look, see I told you Vista is fucking slow". You know what, he's right. Microsoft what are you doing? You're making me look stupid, that's what. Look, I understand that Vista is a much richer experience and therefore is going to require some additional overhead. We've had that sort of thing with every Windows release. But XP IS THREE TIMES FASTER?!? I also know these are the beta service packs so for now I'm going to give you a final benefit of the doubt. But you're really going to have to pull it together and pull it together very quickly!

So please, please don't make me look any worse. Make life easier for me. Me, one of your biggest supporters. Don't make me move to OS X or Linux. I won't. I can't. But I just might have to...