Time for another BS check, I spotted this over on Barb Bowman's blog (who nicely covers why not to trust Cnet's reviews). Tom Merritt, executive editor at Cnet went over five reasons not to buy Windows Vista, so let's see what he managed to say.

5: Search is buried.

Search is everywhere, every explorer window, its right in the Start menu. It takes one key press or one mouse click no matter where you are to get to search.

Having a huge search bar right in the middle of the desktop would still take one click to bring it into focus.

4: Closed Microsoft eco-system - same old monopoly stuff.

He mentions the Welcome Center being full of Microsoft stuff, and the RSS gadget only working with Internet Explorer.

What a lot of rubbish. Computer manufacturers can customise the Welcome Center, with their own logos, own links, own products, anti-virus search absolutely anything they want.

Maybe if you go and buy a computer with Windows Vista on it, you'd actually see that instead of relying on review copies you got directly from Microsoft.

The RSS gadget plugs into the RSS platform, the only thing in common with IE is that IE uses the RSS platform. It's not tied to Internet Explorer. If Firefox, or application X used the RSS platform you'd have the same feeds there too.

That was the point of having a central RSS platform, you don't have to import and export your feeds every time you change applications, they're all centralised in a single store and automatically updated.

From the RSS team's blog:

The Windows RSS Platform is available to any application. The idea is that applications can utilize the Windows RSS Platform to become RSS enabled without having to re-implement basic RSS building blocks. This can significantly reduce the time and effort application developers have to invest in order to integrate RSS into their programs.

Like many of you, I've been running several RSS applications (aggregators, pod casters, etc…) for some time and am subscribed to close to 100 feeds. Each time I start using another RSS application I play the "game" of OPML export and import. This quickly becomes a hassle, especially when I lose track of feeds because I subscribed to or deleted feeds in different applications and hence my feed lists are no longer in sync.

This is where the Common Feed List of the Windows RSS Platform can help. Multiple applications can read, add, or delete from the Common Feed List and hence are "sharing" the user’s list of subscribed feeds.

Check your facts first Tom.

3: Lack of applications, because of Vista delays 3rd parties are scrabbling to make their products work.

Honestly what the hell is this guy thinking? Windows Vista has been available to developers for well over two years. Delaying Windows Vista gives them more time to get their act together, not the opposite.

2: Price.

This keeps cropping up so I think its time to kill this once and for all. Windows Vista *is* cheaper than Windows XP and 2000. Prices from Overclockers:

Windows Vista Ultimate: £123.36 (today).
Windows XP Professional: £123.73 (9th November 2002 - over a year after launch).
Windows 2000 Professional: £124.55 (9th November 2002 - over two years after launch).

And Windows XP Professional didn't include things like Media Center and Tablet, those were separate editions, so you couldn't have everything in one package.

1: Disappointing.

That's your opinion Tom, which judging on how wrong you are on everything else, probably isn't worth a lot.