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First of all, I found the Windows experience much, much better than what it used to be a few years ago. I haven't seen a BSOD during this week, which is a serious change compared to the days when I saw at least one a day. Windows XP is quite fast and requires fairly less maintenance.

However, compared to what I am using most of the time (Linux, Solaris, NetBSD, FreeBSD, OS X and Minix), Windows proved to have three major flaws.

First of all, what's in the box is hardly what it's advertised to be. You don't get a modern operating system, packed with useful features and exciting prospects. You get a rather primitive system, both in terms of architecture and in terms of basic tools. And it's certainly not modern -- the architecture hasn't changed significantly since the first versions of Windows NT, while other systems have evolved dramatically (compare what Ubuntu is now to what Debian was 10 years ago, even at the kernel level). The much-advertised multimedia experience is pale compared to OS X and, in some ways, even to BeOS. And, for the last ten years, Microsoft has constantly advertised the improvements in Windows security and how much more secure Windows is when compared to Linux, OS X or Unices. However, I'm yet to suffer from spyware and viruses on these systems.

Secondly, Windows proved to be too much of a hassle to maintain. Windows Updates, defragmenting, virus checking, spyware checking, system checking for registry problems and other similar problems are simply too much. On the other operating systems I use, the only thing I supervise are system updates, and that's because I want to know what it installs and maybe bypass some updates. Quite about everything else is scheduled, and requires no attention from me since the process is completely non-interactive. As a consequence, I don't even think I can name more than 5 arguments of fsck -- since the tools itself is free, all my computers use roughly the same cron file, which I just copy-pasted around, so I only looked at them a couple of time.

And finally, Windows proved to be too inflexible. There are a lot of things I can't configure, and those which can be configured are accessed through a cryptic Registry which you have to very careful with.

Nevertheless, I'm not willing to imply that Windows is not good. In many cases, it is the right tool for the job. If I was a web developer on a tight budget, I'd rather use a low-end PC to run Flash and Dreamweaver on Windows instead of spending much more on a low-end Mac for the same reason. It still remains the right tool if I wanted to play games and I couldn't afford a games console. And there are countless other scenarios. So I'm not willing to bash Windows here. But I do want to point out a paradox.

Despite being, essentially, quite rudimentary, Windows manages to be an incredibly bloated operating system. In time, you run across all kind of features you couldn't care less about, but at first you simply realize that a freshly installed system filled 1 GB of your hard drive with what seems like nothing at all. This makes me think that Windows XP is probably a patched-up version of Windows 2000, built over an aging codebase, adding new features without bothering to remove those that were not necessary. And, considering that Vista is just as bare in its initial setup, but four times larger, I can only guess what Vista is patching up.

It's hard to speculate on what will happen next. Microsoft built a monopoly on the basis of the users' computer ignorance and not-so-competitive business practices. However, this is hardly what I'd call a solid foundation, and when a spark for decline is given, the whole thing can crumble easily.

I'm not exactly an anti-Microsoft guy (I admit I've seen Windows 2003 running very well on some servers, and if I needed a domain controller I would use Windows). I'm not a Unix evangelist either -- my only gospel in this field is the Right Tool for the Job. Windows hardly proved as a usable tool for mine, let alone as being the Right one. However, I do believe that promoting rudimentary tools (like Internet Explorer) to industry standards only for the sake of corporate business was a major obstacle for progress. In some ways, Windows was like the Spanish inquisition, quickly destroying, reducing to underground or banning to third world countries anything that didn't fit in Microsoft's view. Therefore, I do hope for that spark I was talking above to come sooner.

About the author:
I'm a student and part time journalist and software development from Romania. When I'm not fiddling with computers, I'm usually singing or reading something.