This used to be a major part of my old Argonet site. I have however decided to just reproduce the article that I wrote about why I hate Microsoft, and also reproduce some graphics from a very good site 'The Trash' which has long since become defunct.

My views on Micrsoft and it's software have not changed, in fact I feel more strongly that Windows is getting worse. Windows 11 is the latest incarnation, and requires huge amounts of disc space for a feature rich install. I just don't have the time any more to keep a myriad of links up to date, and so this part of the site should be regarded as an archive. The article is still as relevent today as when it was written in 2005.

I had not thought that I would update these pages, however I have since taken on a volutary role that requires the use of a Windows 10 Laptop, as it is a charity it can't afford to replace the machine at the whim of a multi billion dollar giant. What of Windows, well it seems to get worse, with each monthly update. The machine seems to spend almost all of it's time updating itself, and then the rest of the time sorting out the mess it has made for itself. I have turned Windows update off to try and keep the machine useable on the days I use it.

Just because you can issue monthly updates, doesn't mean that you should! Microsoft seems to live in a Universe where everyone has a brand new machine which gets updated every year. However not everyone has the bilions of dollars that Microsoft has.

As Microsoft continues to make Billions of dollars it has got rid of the scheme where charities and other bodies could buy Office at a reasonable price. Office with it's Office automation is reasonable, it take minutes to generate a letter based on data from Access. I do not dislike the Office tools, Excel and Access I really like using, Word not so much. If anything Excel and Word are full of features that do nothing but bloat the software and could be trimmed down.

In the original site, I stated that I wasn't keen on Linux (in its many guises), however things have moved on a great deal. I'm still not sure that it is right for everyone, but it is now almost as easy to install as Windows. Linux does score in the fact that it is very secure. Very few viruses exist for it. Some may argue that it is because Linux is a minority platform, however this is no longer the case. Some software companies are coming round to the fact that Open Source software may be the way forward. We shall have to wait and see.

What of RISC OS. It does lag behind, but for word processing it can still hold it's own. It does have a very good vector graphics program for budding artists, and now a half decent web browser, which allows access to most sites. I still can't believe that after all these years RISC OS is still going strong, and making its own path.

The anit Microsoft site has two sub pages which are :

1. The original article, why I don't like Microsoft
2. A graphics page with some amusing takes on common MS images