Vista Lacks Simplicity

I suffered my first significant exposure to Windows Vista a couple of weeks ago, and I’m still bemused by the experience. I was roped in to help someone make an old piece of software work and it seemed like a simple enough task. I used the Internet to identify the problem and identified I needed to alter a .dll file somewhere. So, the next step – find the .dll file.

Now, in Windows XP, I choose Search from the Start menu, stick the name in – perhaps with a wildcard – and off it goes. Vista – simplicity seems to have got lost somewhere amidst all the fancy Apple-esque graphics. I tried to use the quick Search, which sits within the Start menu, but it couldn’t find what I wanted. Is it something to do with Vista wanting to set up some fancy index? Anyway – I managed to find the more involved search facility and just stared… tapping pathetically at the various options, dropdowns and radio buttons (or something along those lines). Maybe someone intended it to be easy and intuitive, but it wasn’t. I don’t expect to read an online manual or help file to use something as basic as a search facility. It took me about 10 minutes to fathom out without assistance, poking and pushing options that looked promising.

I’m not impressed.

The fact I had to suffer this experience because Vista uses a non-backwards compatible version of Direct X simply tells me that this operating system doesn’t belong anywhere near a computer I own… I shall manage with XP until I finally have the time to spend loading up an instance of Linux in some form or another. I have no desire to go there… unless Microsoft start producing software that brings the user back into the frame rather than simply trying to amuse people with resource-hungry eye candy.


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