Microsoft shot themselves in the foot just as open-source solutions are becoming competitive. As an Ubuntu fan I have been continually impressed with each successive release, but I always have kept a Windows partition. So, when Vista was released I tried it. It was new, shiny and full of promises. At first I was amazed by the sleek interface, but I quickly ran into UAC, and driver incompatibility. After a few weeks of frustration, I reformatted my hard drive and put XP back on dual-boot with Ubuntu.
Microsoft again promised to compete, announcing Vista SP1, but after delays, bugs and bad press, Vista looks unrecoverable. Microsoft had hoped to assert its dominance, but what was to be Linux’s worst enemy is turning out be Linux’s best friend. Though XP pro is still very popular, with more and more software and hardware showing up in the Tux, Windows’ reign will soon end.