And they wonder why people hate Vista?!?

As part of getting a new Xbox 360, I am in the process of upgrading my desktop to Windows Vista. I’ve been meaning to rebuild my desktop for sometime, and used this as a good excuse to try out the new OS. However, stuff is happening to me that makes me scratching my head wondering how stuff like this can happen almost after a year in the wild.

I realized that one of my file copies didn’t succeed, so I wanted to restore from a back-up. No problem – I have the files backed up from last Friday (in XP), but apparently I cannot access XP backup files from Vista without downloading a utility. I make my way to Microsoft’s web site and am prompted to install the Genuine Advantage installation utility. I right click that stupid information bar in IE and get a message that my computers settings don’t allow ActiveX applications installed on my computer to run from a web site.

Fair enough Microsoft, I understand why you want to run the “Genuine” check (although I disagree with your “guilty until proven innocent” mentality). I also understand you want to keep a computer secure and ActiveX scripts are definitely a concern. But when your OS doesn’t allow me to run your utility on your web site, then that’s unacceptable! Then they wonder why people think Vista is such a nightmare.

Since I’m at my family’s house I’ve done virtually all of the installation remotely through Remote Desktop and VNC (which sucks on Vista by the way). This means I haven’t physically sat in front of my Vista computer and experienced the OS – so I’m holding off judgment. However, headaches like these are tilting the scales in a big way for me.