Being in the Internet communications business I typically have several major PC platforms running in my office for testing and research purposes. My Windows XP box died several months ago and I had not replaced it. I think I was simply avoiding the issue.

Yesterday I bought a new Windows PC. It is a HP Athlon 3500+ with 1GB RAM, 250GB HD, LightScribe Drive, media card readers galore, USB + FireWire on the front, PCI Express slot for when I want to go crazy with Quake 4. Pretty quiet box. The Athlon throttling feature is pretty neat. The hardware is great, and all for 600 bucks. On the front there is a HP sticker that asks boastfully “Can your PC do all this?” Well, no. My Mac can’t do all that. And certainly not for 600 bucks. For 600 bucks I get a Mac Mini that doesn’t even burn DVDs.

The thing that wrecks it all is Windows.

Windows, Windows, Windows. God how I hate Windows. What an inelegant OS. Why do I need to go through this again?

An example. Only one. I bought a 802.11g USB dongle so I could get on my wireless network and not have to string cables. I installed the driver from the included CD as instructed. I plugged in the dongle. I didn’t work. I didn’t recognize any networks. So I found a little configuration program that came with the CD. It seemed to work, but wouldn’t acquire an IP from the router. So I found a box deep in the network configuration setting “Let Windows Manage this Wireless Connection” or some such thing. So I checked that and it was able to get an IP. What the difference was I shall never know. Then I restarted my machine. The network would not come up. I had to go through the same process again because Windows wasn’t saving my preferences. I will have to do this each time, apparently (yes, I ran all the Windows updates). I had the dongle plugged into one of the the USB ports on the front. I wanted to move it to the back, so I unplugged it and plugged it in again. “Found New Hardware” appeared on the screen. Windows insists on installing a driver each time I unplug and replug the dongle. Amazingly stupid.

Add this to Norton and Windows fighting with each other over who gets to be my firewall (I already have one so I want niether) and you have the following: a really nice piece of hardware ruined by lousy software. Already.

I hate Windows.