Regarding your recent post regarding all the ways you love to hate Vista;

Oh, man could I relate to your exasperation; OK, blowout, to Vista’s tendency to change your view settings.   XP does this too and I figured it out.   I play with images a lot and have the settings where I need them to do what I need to do for each operation.

Every single time I do a Windows Update, A BUNCH OF MY FREAKIN’ SETTINGS ARE CHANGED!   The security updates are necessary, of course. Yesterday I updated and there were 18 critical updates and 16 of them were for security.   Never mind, that’s another rant.   Then (background music; impending doom) I spend the next three days in a boiling dither when almost every operation takes an extra step or two.   Don used to sneak in and update me, but hated so much to hear me grousing he told me I was on my own.   I can’t wait to see what the updates have done to me this time.   The last time, Windows inserted something without my knowledge or permission that warns when I browse on Firefox or try to research anything about Open Source that certain pages have not passed their standards for ’security’, do I really want to continue?   YOU’D BETTER BELIEVE I WANT TO CONTINUE, YOU PIECE OF POO-POO!

Every time Don does a Windows Update, his CD burning software simply doesn’t work, he has to reinstall it.   This time it was just broken, he had to go search for a freeware that will work for him.   This causes him to mutter softly, “This is very annoying…”   That’s his version of being very, very p.o.’d.

I just know when Windows is in there larking around in my computer, it’s trying to do something I don’t want it to.   Last night after the update, Mike Lin’s Startup Monitor caught Microsoft’s Memories Disk Creator trying to write to the registry.   Since I have no interest in this program, I denied it the right to do that.   Then Zone Alarm caught Windows trying to “phone home” to tell on me so I denied them the right to do that.   OK, two down, more to come I bet.   Bring it on.

It’s a mistake to write before my first half-pot of coffee.

Lisa Miller