I hate even the Win XP to death (especially because NOW I have to use this...), so my answer for Vista is logical - go to hell with it, dear M$!
Why I hate WinXP?
Good qeustion.
This list of things I blame them for might give you a clue...:
I use computer to WORK. WORK, not stare at "nice" graphical OS. I hate XP to death. I never saw worser OS - right after installed with SP 1.0a - to hell with this childish garden!
Peoples talking about how XP is faster - bullshit, Win2k is faster in everything, except boot time - but since I boot once per day... Peoples talking about how XP is more "stable" - another nonsens - my folding machines use XP (sadly, for the easy install + network desktop access), server use Win2k server (pain to install, but ROCK stable since then - 102 days online for application server where almost all the time someone logging and running stuff - I say impressive - and it did not crash, just we tried bluetooth and need reboot then...) and my main machine use W2k SP2 (SP3 is ok, but slowe and SP4 did bring some nasty XP bugs in packets + 3DMark1999 patched no longer work with SP4, together with other programs - just like on the XP shit) ...
Now true reasons, what anyone who did not agree on my "XP is shit" opinion has to defeat first, before talking any futher:
1) on machine overclocked beyond stable limits, XP destroy itself during booting, myny times beyond what is repairable... Win2k NEVER do this!
2) normal user with normal XP need activation after every HW change, with I find repulsive enought for 1) never ever pay for XP 2) use stolen version for companies...
3) impossibility to disable some "great" features, like the annoing window each time I insert Zip/CD card - No, selection DO NOT DO ANY ACTION and remember this selection for future does NOT help me to get rid of this shit!
4) controling me too much - XP send way too much data to M$ - I can set FW rules, but who did not have good HW firewall and knowledge witch outgoing ports one can block - then he/she is naked to the M$ - I find this very alerting and controling - no way this for me!
5) speaking about control, when one save web page to HDD and then try delete/rename the data folder XP created, there come the annoing WinXP msg informing me, that Im about... To hell with these messages - I know what I doing. If not, Im ready to face the consequences. Not need childish shit to tell me what to do!
6) space on screen is the most valuable space ever. XP, even in classic mode, eat more of this precious space...
I trully did NOT want give my space to XP "beauty" - I want WORK with OS, that it is!!!
7) XP can't minimize taskbar button enought. I using mostly over 50+ programs. Collapsing the same ones means much slower access/more chaos on screen only. But hell, XP can't let me do this:
http://doublescan.wz.cz/taskbar.gif
...and that is my typical working situation... Show me, if you can do THIS on XP
8) frankly, after win install, the most disturbing thing is the number of need re-configurations what has to be done to one feel at home
And in WinXP is the number of necessary re-configurations need to the OS look like OS and not like toy for 10-year old child - some has to be made so the XP crap even become configurable after all - way much higher that for Win2k, witch are user-ready "out of the box", unlike XP...
9) Win2k did NOT force me to use NTFS for OS disk. Because NTFS is effective only on big drives and not on my 2G SYS partion, I use FAT32 there - more recent SP packs (when installing from CD, with already updated XP) allow you format only with NTFS, witch is uneffective thing on small partions - speaking about size, my Win2k need only 450MB, 490MB with all programs and stuff installed - therefore backup of the partion is under 300MB mostly, so it is easy to transfer on CD - for easy restore (DriveImage2002, high compression) - some XP images did not even fit on the CD!!! :angry:
10) I hate XP also because most "geniuses" think so simply - XP = more new that W2k = must be better! Mostly, in software, is the exact oposite. Old OS have most of their kinks already cured, while XP is more on the start of the journey to become long-time reliable OS
(current negative experiences with SP2 for XP are good example...) My friend tried use XP as server OS. After it for NO REASON failed after about month for third time, totally destroying itself, he finally accept Win2k server - witch is, like I say, pain to install and configure properly, but then...
11) access over 100MBi/full network NIC from W2k machine to WinXP machine into windows/system32 directory took almost minute on fast systems. The very same thing is instant, like normal direcotry listing when the network machine run win2k or win2k server.
This seems to be fixable by disabling windows file protection (WEP)
http://www.winguides.com/registry/display.php/790
12) WinXP simply ignore the settings about maximal possible resolution in the monitor driver - so they display all possible resolutions, driving chaos to the resolution selection (too sensitive) and also possible danger of selecting too high resolution, that might damage your monitor...! (at least in WinXP is the question after resolution change disaplayed only once per resolution, in W2k is always... a little trick how to fix this could be handy too
)
This actually seems that is more nVidia drivers bug. It could be cured with latest CoolBits:
http://ax2.old-cans.com/coolbits.zip
13) default icon for attached CF card reader can't be (like in W2k) simply turned off. It is possible, however, to disable inactive sys tray icons, witch hide it, but since the button to unhide the hidden tray icons took almost as much space as the single icon, it make the "hide" pointless in terms of wasting my valuable space on my monitor. Curse the damn XP!
14) WinXP low disk space checking and warnings. WinXP continually checking if free space on your hard drive system partion aren't bellow 200MB. Then it start complain and run the CleanDisk utility. A absolutely expendable watching process and also very very annoing one. Luckily, with a little register tweak it can be disabled:
http://ax2.old-cans.com/NoLowDiskSpaceChecks.zip :he:
15) only WinXP does hang for about few seconds, when the attempted to be deleted file is in use. This is very flustrating, especially and since the W2k react instantly on this, did not locking itself into endless waiting loop <_<
So untill someone properly challenge me on these fifteen major milestones why use Win2k instead of bloated XP crap, I did not want to hear any more "great XP" messages, grrr!
trodas love this:
http://doublescan.wz.cz/trodas_w2k.gif 
).
Can't get to use it, don't like the way they steal the most valuable space ever - the space on MY screen and - well, luckily this can get disabled 
