We're scratching our heads today over a recent post at Ed Bott's Microsoft Report: Six Vista annoyances fixed in Windows 7. While a couple of the points have merit, several of them seem like quite a stretch. Let's take a look:

"Annoyance #1: That awkward Preview pane." Bott loves Vista's preview pane for quickly peeking inside files (we do too), but cries foul at the need to click three times to enable or disable the feature. Actually, it's two clicks--and what's wrong with just leaving it enabled? That's what widescreen monitors are for. This is your number-one annoyance?

"Annoyance #2: The overcomplicated Shutdown button." We agree: Windows 7 improves on this, but you still have to click Start. It's inconceivable that Microsoft hasn't engineered a dedicated Shutdown button, one that resides in, say, the opposite corner. But Vista's button is "overcomplicated"? To whom, exactly?

"Annoyance #4: Unpleasant User Account Control." Seriously? People are still bringing this up?

Bott also decries Vista's defrag utility (as if anyone ever uses one anymore), limited backup program (so what? Corporate users rely on corporate backup tools), and awkward method for arranging windows--which dates back to Windows 3.1 (meaning it's hardly a Vista-specific annoyance).

In other words, this is yet another attempt to pillory Vista, and it falls completely flat. The irony is that Bott seems to praise Vista while at the same time denigrating it. Hey, blogosphere: corporations and users alike have already recognized that Vista just isn't the train wreck you've made it out to be. Wake up and smell the OS already.