The Final Nail

Well, it finally happened. Mention has been made on the blogwaves about Vista's issues, including, evidently, that it ain't all that stable. Therein is the start of my story. On top of all the crap I'm having to go through because of Vista (the typing up of my student packet being the biggest pain in my ass), I get to the point where I've typed all I'm gonna type for the Poetry section of class--upwards of 50 pages of stuff--and saving it as I go. It was a poem by Heather McHugh, and the poem ended with "poetry is what/ he thought but did not say." I click "Save." The computer comes back at me with a window saying "Cannot Access File." Earth to Computer, Earth to Computer, you've not only accessed the file before, you're in it now. I've been typing on it for the past three days straight. My only option is to click the OK button. Vista is big on notification windows that pretty much just "check in" to see if you're awake to click the OK button. I click the OK button. Another notification window briefly flashes on my screen before vanishing. I could only catch a bit of a file name that had "recover" in it. Not good, I think, not good. As soon as the window vanishes, I see my 50+ page document vanish from the screen. Crap. I go back to my drive to open it up again. Windows has deleted it from my drive. As in: Gone. As in: not found on any drive. I feel all the blood drain out of my head.

After much loud oratory, I look for ways to retrieve the file. After all, Vista, with all its invasiveness, backs everything up, for your (and your nation's) security. I access that part of the program after much searching. Vista tells me that the backup portion of its services is not activated, though I distinctly remember selecting it when I was installing this turd-o-nugget program on my new laptop. No help there. And of course Vista hides all of your settings and program menus. After repeatedly getting windows notifying me that I had no authorization to open up various program files (no authorization?? It's my computer! {cue more loud oratory}), I finally find the backup file, completely by accident. I now have three separate versions of this file, in varying spots, in case this crock of crap gives me more problems. I think the least Microsoft can do to rectify this is that those of us that got suckered into buying this operating system should get free access to the Service Pack updates that Microsoft sure as heck oughta be working on 24/7. I'm not a hater. Really not a hater, but there is a special place I'd love to shove this Operating System. Let's just say it'd be in Bill Gates' direction, and it won't be pleasant. GO APPLE!