The worst Microsoft products of all time

Are all these links through to V3 your way of getting people over there instead and closing down The Inq or something?

We have no news, go to this place instead......

Yawn, how about knocking Linux

Meh, this list isn't as good as the best products list.

- IE5: I'm surprised they listed Internet Explorer 5 as one of the worst applications, especially in light of the state of the browser industry at the time. At the time Internet Explorer was the most advanced browser on the market, especially compared to the likes of Netscape 4.x which was an utter chore to code for. The authors also, for some reason, think that Firefox even existed at that point. No. The closest thing to it was Mozilla, the buggy, slow, open source version of Netscape's equally slow 6.0 browser. Yes, Microsoft used it for anti-competitive practices, but we should judge the product, not the uses of it. Hell, perhaps we should be *thankful* that Internet Explorer killed off Netscape and spawned an open source browser as a result.

- Vista Capable: "minimum requirements" imply the lowest common denominator, and if you're buying a $300 computer thinking it'll do all the things the higher end machines will, GET REAL. Vista can and does run just fine on low-end hardware, and even has low-tech settings to reduce its sluggishness. I'm more suprised that they didn't spend the third slot for the UAC system in Vista for making people tune out to security through overuse of notices.

- Clippy: I actually can't believe just how cliché it is to list Clippy in the worst products of all time. Really, what is so bad about him? If you hate him, you just right click, and tell him to hide. HE NEVER COMES BACK. As a help-concept I found him actually useful in a pinch, especially when he'd show you exactly where in the menus you need to click. Perhaps cliché journalists should be the worst indirect spawn that Microsoft's products have produced.

I liked clippy, HATE VISTA. Me at least was fast. Maybe I was luckier than most bur Me didnt crash any more than other windows.
On a list from one to ten Vista was a minus 2.

Vista is awesome, i used it and had rarely have error, the only people who complain about vista are thoughts with out dated pcs

C'mon this is beyond silly.. click and get to the page.. only to find

*oh nothing here* please go to this place.. useless.

have a link somewhere on the front page instead.. clicking these links are a waste of time !!

I'm glad this was included. I still have my box of OS2Warp to remind me of what could have been... It was available months ahead of the expected release date for Win95... that kept being pushed further and further; it was October (I think) before '95 was available.
I was still hopeful in 96, I have a copy of Warp 4 (Merlin)

After fixing Vista as a l3 Dell tech for a while I found while it messed up frequently it was always very easy to diagnose and fix. and it was always very stable.

In fact if you turn off everything, Fully tweak the inet settings, and butcher the registry, and optimice the system i could make a case for it being the best OS I have ever used......Yes even better than XP once you chop off everything that makes it vista.

In that light I guess it belongs on the list.

I would have like=d to see the MS Habu on the list tho.

You shouldn’t kick a company when it’s down.

You can tell when these people were born, because they've missed a few of Microsoft's clangers. First off the mark is Microsoft Xenix. That sucker couldn't even compile programs because it was shipped with a C header files in MS-DOS format (CR+LF at the end of each line, and Ctrl+D at EOF) which caused the compiler --- which expected files in UNIX format --- to choke. Second would be Multiplan, the spreadsheet with the UI from hell. This was an attempt by Microsoft to have a common look and feel between its applications. But what sort of worked for a word processor sucked so much for a spreadsheet that everyone used Lotus 1-2-3 instead. Third would be Microsoft COBOL. An early attempt by Microsoft to complete in all sectors of a market -- this time compilers. The de-facto standard for COBOL was (and is) the IBM mainframe implementation. And in an early display of Microsoft's arrogance Microsoft COBOL was as far from that as you could be.

One word:

registry

In fairness, Win95 was a heck of a lot better than Win3.1

At least you didn't have to find and install your own TCP stack...

Granted, in retrospect, Win95 was not all it could have been. But then, Microsoft has never been one for giving you more than you paid for...