I hate Microsoft

No, hate isn't a strong enough word...I loathe and despise Microsoft. Every time I have to use windows I come away feeling like I was beat up, violated and had my lunch money stolen.

I only know two other people in the history of my CS classes that had even used Linux. This semester I'm in a group that has been tasked to create an application. There was no discussion at all...the language is c#, the programming environment is Visual Studio 2005...basically, "Let's all drink the Microflacid Kool-aid!"

It's the same thing again and again.

So the use of Visual Studio has been thrust upon me and I need to write up my part of the project. I have Vista running in a VM, so that should work. But it doesn't. I also dual-boot, so I can just reboot into XP. That should work. But it doesn't.

See, apparently I can get all the Microsoft goodies I want, courtesy of some kind of blood pact between Weber State and the Overlords of Redmond. I think it goes something like: "here, you can give away our crappy software to your students for free, if you pretend there is nothing else out there." At least, that's my theory...so it's supposed to work like this: Login here, click here, download MS software...viola!

Wrong. Click here, login here, click here, here, and here...download a "downloader", run the downloader, watch it fail. Repeatedly. While spewing incomprehensible gibberish to some log file.

OK. Well, they use Visual Studio at work, so I'll just install from the CDs. (In my dreams).
"Not enough room on the C: drive"
uh...ok, install to Z: then.
"Not enough room on the C: drive"
I didn't say "C:", I said "Z:".
"Sorry can't do that."

Now, mind you that this is all a very terse summary. In real time this has taken hours to accomplish and I'm ready to grab the nearest sharp object and get stabby.

Most Linux nerds hate Microsoft because it's kewl to do so. I have legitimate reasons for it. From trying to decipher the pile of crap that is the Windows API (did that at Realm Systems), to dealing with the enormous inconvencience of being forced into the "Microsoft Way"(tm) of doing things, my life has been incredibly disrupted by them. Things would be so much simpler if the company would just die and leave the computing world alone.