A life with windows

I was living in Boston, Massachusetts, on the day 95 hit the street. To the despair of some of my colleagues, my home system — currently my third generation of HP PC — is bought rather than borrowed from an obliging supplier. I like to test important things, like a new Microsoft OS, as a consumer would.

I bought my copy of Windows 95 together with the Plus! disk on the day it came out. I persuaded my niece to join me so she could see what it was like to do an operating system upgrade on your main system.

That may seem a hard thing to do but, as a Rolling Stones fan even my niece had been infected with the "Start Me Up" mania that the hype machine had drummed up for the launch.

Windows 95 launched as smooth as anything. Then I loaded Plus! which has a new service from Microsoft called MSN. Microsoft had really got online in a big way. I was delighted. My niece was relieved. And I loved 95, from the Start icon to the lioness portrayed in glorious hi-res graphics on the installation screen. Then something funny happened.

I had been online since my days at Byte — one of the first magazines to develop an online service back in the 1980s. In 1995, I was a CompuServe subscriber so I didn't bother to load the MSN client. Compuserve loaded, and promptly crashed. CompuServe just didn't do that — it was a well behaved piece of software, although it might drop the line. Under Windows 95, it crashed every time. Windows would tell me it was the application's problem. I smelled a rat. I am a journalist after all.

At that time, Compuserve was one of the world's largest providers of online service for consumers. Microsoft wanted to be and now is one of the world's largest providers of online services.

Microsoft always denied that they had done anything to make Compuserve crash when running 95. Like many who witnessed this, I did not believe them and still don't.

This was probably one of the more significant incidents in my life with Microsoft. It soured my feelings. Deliberately crashing someone's favourite application in order to promote your own will do that to a person.

So, it was no surprise as the US Department of Justice went after Microsoft over antitrust and market manipulation. Journalists like me cheered them on. It was a shame for Microsoft, heroes to zeroes in a few short years, but at least they had the money to warm themselves with.

After that, the operating system story got worse as well. Microsoft launched something called Windows Me. I became an Me owner, although not by my own choice. In the US I upgraded my system and Me came with it. I was happy to stay with 95, but I got Me whether I liked it or not. I didn't like it. Dubbed by Phil, my friend and IT support engineer, Millions of Errors, Me was a dog from the same kennel as Windows 3.0. It crashed all the time and offered little improvement over 95.

The story could have ended there. I could have thrown the PC out and got a Mac. I didn't. I stuck with Microsoft. Only cowards jump ship at the first sign of trouble.

I am glad I did. XP is a dream. Works fine, rarely crashed and has lots of new features that still keep turning up. Secure, mature. This will do nicely.

But what's this. Now they are talking about this thing called Vista. I am not sure at all about this. Do I want to push my luck with another new system so soon? No, I think 2008 sounds just about right. I'll be ready for a change by then.