Vista as released is not even stable; discoordinated activity within the OS and its apps causes data loss and system lockup even on Microsoft’s own computers! Vista lacks crucial features promised during development, particularly the advanced file system, seeking to charm us instead with a “free” multimedia suite (you pay for it) and tardily restyled look-and-feel.

Security on Vista is like previous Microsoft efforts: a matter of bunging a million tiny corks into a sponge then calling it a boat.

And perhaps the most vital feature Microsoft could include is simply missing — no core-level support for splitting tasks across multiple processors. Only dividing multiple tasks among processors is supported, bad news since in two short years most PCs will have eight cores and Vista would then only be able to assign 12% of the PC’s power to any one task, slowing corporate America’s spreadsheets and graphics packages to a wheezing standstill.

The feature is missing because Microsoft didn’t think they would be releasing Vista so late — it was supposed to have a successor out next year with multiprocessing capability. The successor is nowhere near ready and Microsoft’s only answer is to drown out any questions or doubts with wall-to-wall propaganda, right up to the point where they have to admit they suckered us.

By then I expect the fabulous Microsoft cash reserve, currently quoted at twenty-eight billion dollars, will be down to around twenty billion dollars and dropping fast as Microsoft buys its way into more consumer electronics markets, more non-computer-centric enterprises to cushion the blow to its finances as corporate America ceases to buy new Windows licenses.

And Bill and Melinda will be weathering scandals of their own; this habit they have of paying school districts to reorganize schools to their own screwy specifications then leaving them twisting in the wind for further funding is going to blow up in their faces real soon. But that’s another rant.