Attention Windows 7.0: Please Don’t Interrupt Me!

Given that, I have a modest suggestion for the “common engineering criteria,” a set of prime directives for all parts of Windows. That suggestion is this: “Windows, please don’t interrupt me.” I suspect that once I clarify what I mean, you too will clamor for a more polite Windows.

Here’s what the start of a day at the computer looks like for me. I log on to my laptop, which of course takes about a minute. Windows displays my desktop, the Start button, the Start menu, and so on. I’m probably going to do a bit of work in Microsoft Word, so I click Start, All Programs, Microsoft Office—and things stop. It seems as if the Start menu always lets me have about two or three clicks, and then it stops responding. After a second or two, it adds insult to injury by collapsing the Start menu, as if to say, “Ha, ha, fooled you, silly human!” . . .