Life Musings

I don't think I'm ever going to stop complaining about Microsoft Windows Vista.

I hate, hate, hate the fact that it takes forever to call up Windows Explorer. When I migrated to Vista, I was hoping that it would perform better in this regard... but NO!!!! Apparently, it still takes it upon itself to perform all sorts of background processing that slows the process down completely.

Ditto when I want to open a document in, say, Microsoft Word or Adobe InDesign. If the document isn't in the default folder ("My Documents," for example), then I've learned to select "Open File," then walk away and make myself a cup of coffee. After all, it takes about a minute or so before the navigational dialog will respond. And why? Because Vista (much like XP) insists on doing all sorts of questionable, fluffy tasks in the background. (Digesting thumbnail images is doubtlessly one of them.)

Note that I say "fluffy." I won't claim that these tasks are useless; after all, somebody surely likes them. They dramatically hinder performance though, especially if you have a lot of documents -- and many of us do.

Ah, the triump of style over substance. Whoopee.