Yesterday, wanting to do something productive, I went about spiffying up my resume, updating my GPA (for the higher, thank goodness), National Grid employment, and technical skills. I noticed that I had put "Windows 95/98/2000/XP". It didn't feel right. I wanted to add Vista on that list for the heck of it, and maybe remove 95/98 since they no longer mattered.I have no personal gripes with the year-old Windows Vista; or at least, not as the general scorn of Vista has been portrayed lately. I just had no reason to use Windows anymore. I was dying to find a reason -- any reason -- for using it; I really wanted to try out Vista. So, in order to update the resume to read "Windows XP/Vista", I wanted to try it out for a week to feel out how it works, how it differs from the Windows I knew, and how it does things in general.
Vista, so it would appear to me, oozes of the smell that is Microsoft. I don't necessarily mean that in a bad way, except the times when I do. Under all that flash and bubbly, vista-y GUI, it was the little things that I found difficult. I mean, it ran fine and I had easy access to the programs. But there was something about it that was just a little off.
I can't say that it merely is a matter of getting used to the new version. Buttons and fuctionality just felt slightly out of place. I'm sure I can get used to it if I really needed to, but I don't think I would want to go through all the pain if I had a choice. (Heck, I finally started using Microsoft Outlook here in the office because I needed it for e-mail.) I have been using the Mac OS here and there since 1998, but I have also been using Windows up until 2006, from about 1995, as my main computer. It was only until 2006 when I got my own Mac and switched exlusively. That comes out to 3 years for Mac and give or take 15 years for Windows.
So I don't think it is a matter of getting used to the Vista (though I understand it is significantly different from the XP experience I knew inside and out).
If anyone has any Vista tips, please share them with me.