What is the deal with Vista?

I installed Folder Size in Vista, it installs fine, but Explorer doesn't show the Folder Size column to be available. So I go to another machine to install Vista and set up a development environment so I can find out why Folder Size doesn't work. This machine already has XP and Ubuntu on it, and some unpartitioned space, so I tell the Vista installer to install to the empty space. It copies some files and then reboots, as expected. But instead of resuming the Vista installation, it resumes XP from hibernation! So I shut down XP, and it boots XP again. So Vista overwrote my Grub boot menu, and boots the wrong partition! I kind of expected it to overwrite the boot menu, and I figured I would restore it later. But I was surprised that it couldn't figure out what partition to load.

And here's the best part - XP didn't actually load the second time. It loads for about 5 seconds, a Blue Screen of Death appears for about 0.1 seconds, and then the machine reboots. Even when it tries to load in Safe Mode.

So the Vista installation upgraded my computer from a dual booting XP/Ubuntu system, to a completely non-functional system.

Vista sucks!

Ok, I copied anything I needed off the XP partition, wiped it all out, and started clean with Vista, just in a smaller partition at the front of the disk. This is how it was meant to be installed anyway - it's not too fair to blast it in a complex install scenario, when it's designed to be a simple installed-by-default OS. Linux is the one that has learned how to work with other OS's. So we get into Vista, and it working well. Install Folder Size - no new column is available. I thought this might be some kind of permissions problem; I just need to change some flag to request the right privileges.

But I quickly discovered the updated documentation for IColumnProvider, which states that the API has been removed for Vista, and the Property System replaces it. The property system seems to be about reading data out of a file stream, such as ID3 tags from MP3 files. It is about metadata that can be indexed by the new search system. I am hoping that there will be a way to simply display dynamic data... but if it were so easy to do so, why couldn't Microsoft have provided an IColumnProviden-to-Property-System wrapper? Why make me do it? What are we paying them for? 1 copy of Vista costs more than all the donations I have received for Folder Size (I am glad to have received any)!

Microsoft spent its resources contacting me, asking me to participate in the "Works With Vista" logo program. This means I need to get a digital certificate that Microsoft software trusts, which will cost me $99. Couldn't I just put a message on my website that says "This program works with Vista," wouldn't that be good enough for 99% of people?  "Yes," says the Microsoft representative, "that would probably work, but you didn't hear that from me." I told him that I wouldn't qualify for the logo anyway, because Folder Size doesn't work with Vista, because Vista removes the API I used to use. He tells me to check the MSDN forums. There has been a question posted there for some time now, with no reponse.

I don't understand the business sense of paying someone to call me to advertise a "Work with Vista" logo program, but withholding product keys from people to help them get their programs actually working with Vista, and providing no technical support.

I guess Microsoft is dead.

Perhaps the next version of Folder Size will be for Linux.