Okay, sorry to go off on such a rant here, but I’m really starting to regret going to Windows Vista so early.  Not to mention a 64 bit version of the operating system.  I’ve always been a supporter of Microsoft’s operating systems for a while, despite having some less than fun interactions with their OS’s throughout the years through various I.T. and helpdesk related jobs, including Gateway (Tech Support Hell).

I’ve been using windows live writer to write all of my posts for at least 6 months for all of my blogging.   So, I was quite excited to learn that there was a new version of windows live writer available for download.  And like a good little Microsoft fanboy, I hurried on over and clicked on the link to download the latest version of this toy.

DENIED!  Here’s what I encountered when I tried to install the windows live software on my machine.

F$%K….YOU…..MICROSOFT!!!

Okay, so you mean to tell me that even though this is made by the same company that made my operating system.   And even though my operating system is the latest version, ULTIMATE version at that (yea, I know, that sounded geeky, but for those of you living under a rock, there is a version of vista called ultimate, which is what I’m running), Microsoft does not support their own 64 bit operating system?  Wow!! Just wow!!!  I can expect this from other developers and companies, but getting this from Microsoft is really a slap in the face to the consumers who have plunked down and bought into Microsoft’s operating system shortly after release.  

Ever since installing vista 64 bit, I’ve had mostly nothing but problems with the operating system as far as hardware and software support goes. Here’s a brief list.  I know that a lot of these aren’t Microsoft’s fault, but Microsoft could have done a LOT better in getting better hardware support for it’s operating system.

1. Drivers for my motherboard not initially available for 64 bit operating system.  Had to track them down from the manufacturer’s web site
2. Same thing with the graphics driver for my Asus Geforce card
3. Operating system takes up around a gig of ram just by itself upon bootup. A good chunk of this is used to run that damn Aero theme.  I installed the system with 2 gigs of ram and ended up disabling the Aero due to it being a resource hog
4. Most 32 bit applications will install, but they can’t address memory in excess of 2 gigs.  In most cases, this isn’t a problem unless you are a gamer with a fondness for supreme commander or some other resource intensive game.  I’ll rant more on this a bit later.
5. When upgrading the system to 4 gigs, the operating system immediately blue screened upon bootup.  Tracked the issue down to a problem where Vista would crash when 4 or more gigs of ram were installed in the system under certain hardware conditions.  Took me almost a whole weekend to figure this one out.  I initially thought I had installed some bad ram.  Thanks a lot Microsoft.  Maybe you should have put that one your auto patch that reboots our pc’s without permission. You would have saved me some time!
6. Internet explorer 7 crashes ALL of the time.
7. Internet Explorer also had an issue caused by the phishing filter, which had to be disabled.  Couldn’t load any pages at all due to the error
8. Even without Aero, the system is a friggin resource hog. And if you throw more ram in, it takes up even more.
9. Obviously many problems with popular 3rd party applications not wanting to install in the 64 bit operating system.

The problems get much deeper than this, but I’m not wanting to get into some deeply technical post which only half of the people reading would understand.  My point is this…  From a consumer standpoint, Microsoft did a piss poor job of getting suitable 3rd and 1st party support from major software and hardware manufacturers.   Not to mention that Microsoft has a history of problems with newly released operating systems.  So much in fact that a good portion of users make it a policy to not upgrade until at least the 1st or second service pack.  I don’t care what Microsoft says as an excuse for all of this.   This is what we see as consumers.  Especially the bleeding edge first adopters like myself.  Not only that, but we’re stuck with a cd with the first generation of the OS.  This means that if our system goes down, we have to load ALL of those fixes and service packs after reinstalling.   How about just sending your registered and legit users latest copies of the install disk upon request after a service pack has been released.  You got the damn product key locked down to our hardware anyway so piracy is not an reason for coming up with excuses for not doing that for your consumers.

Now back to the issue that started this rant.  The last version of Live Writer.  I doubt if anyone there at the Microsoft campus is reading this, but I’ll say it anyway.  If you’re going to come out with various versions of your operating system, at least TRY doing a better job of supporting all of your current operating systems rather than just worrying about certain versions when your company releases software.   And while we’re on that, stop forcing your operating system down our throats just because we want to play games that you ONLY support on your latest OS even though we all know it would fun fine in XP.  Tell those rat bastards in marketing to die in a fire for suggesting such a horrible idea.  There are power users out there who run your operating system.  And right now, they hate you! We want to play Halo with a mouse and keyboard.  Can we do that without being forced to buy a damn 200+ dollar operating system with a crapload of problems?

And as far as your latest live writer application, maybe we don’t want it in a suite of applications.   Maybe we don’t want the latest version of .net runtime to be installed on our machine.  Maybe we don’t want to have to get a latest fix from liveupdate since we are on a corporate network.  Beta 2 worked perfectly, but I guess that was the problem.  Microsoft had to just go and screw that up since it worked so well, like a lot of other things.  I guess I won’t be upgrading anytime soon.

And when it comes to Vista, the fact that we have multiple versions as well as both 32 and 64 bit just COMPLETELY sucks ass for the consumer.  Hmm, I want to access my computer remotely,  so I can just use the business version, but oh! I can’t play my music via media center through my xbox.   Ahh, the consumer version has that, but not the business version.   But oh! I can have both features if I go with the super expensive “Ultimate” versions even though I can care less about the multitude of other features.  Yet, the two features power users want the most are spread out between two variations and in order to get both, they have to get a super expensive version of the OS.  So I just paid a crapload more money for features I would rarely use but the two or 3 that are spread out between different variations.  What a load of crap!

And here’s my second problem!  I want to process many photographs at a time, play games with HUGE maps, edit video’s, and develop applications.   Basically, a lot of things that require lots of memory.   And if I want to get past the 2 gig limit that any one application can access, I have to get the 64 bit version of windows.  But at the same time, I’m screwed due to 3rd party support for my 64 bit OS.  Damned if you do, damned if you don’t!

How about this Microsoft?  Try coming up with just ONE operating system next time.  Intel and AMD have processors that run either 64 or 32 bit code, yet you can’t do that with your operating system and drivers and certain software.  WTF!!!!  And if we want certain features for business or home, then let us just friggin have them all and let us choose which ones we want to install or enable rather than forcing us to get more expensive versions of your operating system.

I’ve been buying your operating systems for a while now, but I’m seriously thinking about pirating your crap due to your crapping on your customers.  I pray that the marketing idiots responsible for all of this don’t bring their crappy and idiotic ideas to your xbox division.  I’ve had a few friends defect over to the Macintosh side.  I had to give them crap for that.

Now I’m wondering if I was the fool.  Hmmmm

Update: Looks like I’m not the only one who was burned by the lack of 64 bit operating system support.

http://jcheng.wordpress.com/2007/09/05/windows-live-writer-beta-3-released/