Ahh, Robert. I will follow your experiment with interest, but you’re on the wrong track. I’m hugely impressed with Vista and can’t wait to install it at work and on my laptop, but regardless of strengths and weaknesses Windows will still struggle to compete with the experience of a Mac for two reasons.

• Out of Box Experience
• Long term usability

As well as outstanding design, Apple’s strength is that they control every aspect of their customers machine. Opening and running a piece of Apple hardware for the first time is an incredibly polished and flawless process. From box to boot the initial experiences of a Mac user have been planned, tested, tweaked, and tested some more. The included software is top of the range (iTunes, iPhoto, iDVD, Quicken) and covers the needs of most purchasers. AppleWorks is no Microsoft Office, but it’s certainly adequate for most home users.

In contrast, when it comes to the PC, Microsoft is strictly a software company and at the mercy of third party PC manufacturers. More often than not these machines are poorly configured, come with vendor-specific tweaks, and are loaded with ’added value’ software that is anything but. Most of these programs are trial versions, provided by companies who pony up for the right to have their software paraded in front of new customers at startup.

As the old adage goes: First Impressions Count.

And unfortunately, the needless tinkering with a users PC doesn’t stop there.

These days, whenever I install a new application it seems I always need to tell it not to create an icon on my desktop, or a shortcut on my quick-start menu, or add a bunch of crap to my right-click menu, or change some other settings that worked perfectly fine. I actually consider myself fortunate if afterwards I don’t have to manually disable some ‘quick startup’/'update check’ startup program with a tray icon.

(Hint: if you’re a program, check for updates when I actually run you. And I’d rather save two-seconds everytime I start my PC, than when I may decide to run your application).

Programs aren’t the sole culprits either. My girlfriend and I had quite different experiences when installing the drivers for our HP printer, she on her Mac, myself on my PC. A new menu group, two new resident processes, and a tray icon just for a printer? Wtf!? 

These additional programs and ‘features’ not only mount up over time, they also impact the end-user experience. Icons begin to get lost on the desktop and in the ever-growing start menu, the system takes longer to start, resources are more taxed, and the user receives prompts from programs they don’t even remember installing.

Being ’someone who works with PCs’ I often get first-aid requests from family or friends. Usually, after some spring cleaning, the problems not only fixed but their PC runs significantly faster. When they ask what I did, they don’t believe me when I reply ‘just removed some stuff you didn’t use’.

I’d love to see a survey that compares the average number of programs Mac and PC users have installed. I think it’d be very telling.