This is a post I meant to write months ago, when popey wrote about it on his blog.

People often come to me to help out with their computers - this is not a surprising thing. Back when Windows XP came out, I really struggled for a while, because I had no exposure to XP. I do now have more experience, as it’s the main operating system available at my work. I don’t particularly like XP, but I was able to help out.

I won’t be supporting Vista. There are a number of reasons for this, but to distill it down, here are the reasons:

• I won’t be running Vista on any of my machines, which makes it difficult to know how to fix it when things break
• I have serious concerns about some of the “Digital Rights Management” software that is intrinsically part of Vista
• I have serious concerns about the licensing scheme that Vista uses
• I have serious concerns about the potential for erosion of privacy in Vista

(There are more details on some of these points here

I know some people will dismiss this as the rantings of a (madman | communist | Microsoft hater | geek weirdo | other)* but it’s a risk I’m willing to take.

mrBen

*Delete as applicable