Way back in February 2007 I wrote about how underwhelmed I was at the prospect of the imminent release of Vista, see here. Subsequently, I purchased a laptop with Vista on it, though I would have much preferred XP.

The lap top is jolly nice, (see here) but I've really always felt that its performance was being hampered by Vista. I can run a benchmarking test on the laptop and then on my desktop and the laptop wins hands down. But in day-to-day to use, the laptop feels sluggish. The desktop runs on XP. Added to which, Vista just is so very irritating to use. It keeps asking me stupid questions. Okay, not stupid... but certainly unwelcome questions. And every now and again it just... stops. It just comes up with its swirly hourglass replacement do-dah and just does nothing for a while. And don't get me started on file transfer times!

I'm not alone in feeling that Vista is pants. Everyone, pretty much does... even possibly Microsoft. Recently I had a letter printed in PC Pro magazine, where I argued that the only way Microsoft could redeem their tarnished image (re Vista) was to provide upgrades to Windows 7 for free. Naturally I wasn't actually expecting them to do so... and naturally they haven't.

However, they have offered it cheaply if you pre-order. From PC World, to be precise, it can be pre-ordered for 45 quid. Not bad at all. So I have indeed pre-ordered it, for delivery in October (or so).

But the moment I hit the order confirm button... I felt like a fool. Microsoft sold me a duff product. And I've just shelled out another wodge of cash to get away from their screw-up. I've paid them again. How dumb of me. But what choice do you have? You can't go back to XP (easily) and I can't take Linux seriously... I've got work to do!

I hope to goodness W7 turns out to be as improved as the reviews claim. If it turns out that it's as bad as Vista, boy will we all be looking stupid. And, as you may recall, Vista got pretty good reviews before it actually hit the streets.

Time will tell. But either way I won't be a happy bunny with Microsoft. It remains to be seen just how irritated with them I'll eventually be.