A certain four-letter Anglo-Saxon word to you, Windows Vista

Here it is. A picture of the final straw on this here camel’s back. The ultimate frustration for someone who spent years as a mere network user at work, with limited ability to customize her own PC environment. Who after paying her OWN DAMN MONEY for a PC to use at home, is confronted with this EACH AND EVERY TIME SHE CLICKS THE “SHUT DOWN” BUTTON ON BOTH OF HER VISTA-EQUIPPED PCs:

Yes. I was yelling.

Look, I have never ever put my PC to sleep. I have no idea why I would want to. It’s either on and I’m using it, or it’s off and I’m not. And it’s really off: peripherals powered down, the surge protector block turned off too. Not sucking electricity just so I can save a teensy bit of time when I want to use the machine again.

Until Vista came along, the “Shut Down” button for Windows (my cousin the software engineer calls it Winbloze) would produce a box that defaulted to your last choice. Which was probably what you usually did and wanted to do that time too: restart, shut down, log off user, whatever.

But not now. Oh no. Whatever you did last time, Vista doesn’t want to know. Because obviously the exalted gurus at Microsoft know best for you and your PC: You are feeling sleepy. Verry verrry sleepy. Do not pursue your desires and the stress they bring. Just relax. Go to sleep.

In three hours I’ll be at the local Apple store meeting with a concierge for an hour of personal shopping. I’m keeping the Toshiba notebook PC but dumping this desktop. Yeah, I know that Macs have a sleep option too but I’ll deal with it. Maybe this unalterable default to the sleep mode is an example of Microsoft aping Apple, but it’s irritating as hell on top of everything else.

And every time I see that “sleep” default on a Vista shutdown screen? I’m thinking: Bite me, Microsoft. You drove me over the edge into MacWorld and put a few thou into Apple’s coffers with that stupid little stunt.