We, as consumers of the mighty Microsoft marketing machine, have come to expect so little from three years of development time that we accept these kind of updates as standard – and never question the delivery. It’s inconceivable to me that -- ten years down the track -- we’re still worrying about where to store files and what to call them. We’re still plagued with the curse of DOS. We’re convinced to upgrade because of features so ridiculous as Disk Cleanup and Configuration Editor – utilities that clean up the mess Microsoft created to being with.
It’s completely shocking that we’re asked to reboot our machines every so often with mild configuration changes. It’s criminal to be told that this new Operating System is ‘more stable’ so it’s an ‘essential upgrade’.
To quote an (albeit updated) phrase:
"Windows 98 is a buggy browser running on top of a 32-bit extension and graphical shell for a 16-bit patch to an 8-bit operating system originally coded for a 4-bit microprocessor, written by a 2-bit company that can't stand 1 bit of competition."
Ironically, it still holds true -- five years after it was first coined.
All of the fan-dangled new ‘features’ aside, no doubt a fair majority of mindless, already-using-Windows-95 consumers will be lining up at their nearest computer establishment at midnight on June 28th, just dying to get their hands on this hot bundle of mediocrity. It’s a shame they will – if only they’d stay home and think for themselves this product might just be revealed as the farce it is, and we might just get something halfway decent next time.
