Pre-emptive, my arse

Ten years after Windows 95 supposedly (but not really) introduced multitasking to the Windows world, it still doesn’t live up to the expectations of users. Even my new WinXP 3Ghz machine takes time out every so often to… well, I don’t know what it’s doing to be honest. I’m clicking on the window I want to use, and it’s gone out to lunch.

What the OS should be doing is paying more attention to what the user’s trying to do. If I’ve finished editing my document, close Word and click back to my email to read what the latest is, I don’t care that Word is still churning up CPU and disk trying to save and shut down. If I’m writing out my movie file after some editing, I don’t want to sit watching the progress bar for it, I want to read the damn email.

You hear that, Windows? I’m the user. I’m in charge. Do what I want. Listen to me.