Every year during the frenzy leading up to MacWorld Expo in San Francisco, rumors swirl about an Apple-branded “Microsoft Office Killer” suite of applications that will finally set Mac users free from Microsoft products completely. Now, You can get most of the way to “non-Microsoft Nirvana” already. Although you may come across web sites coded specifically for Internet Exploder and Microsoft hegemony, rather than being compliant with web standards, you can see the great majority of the web in faster, more secure, more full-featured, no-pop-up-windows browsers like Safari and Firefox.

Using AppleWorks, TextEdit, Keynote, and the new Pages word processor (part of the iWork suite that I will review here in the coming weeks) you can read and write all but the most complicated M$ Word or PowerPoint documents, and interact quite efficiently with folks infected with the Microsoft virus.

But wait a minute. Is Windows really a virus? You thought, given the small bit of sarcasm that sometimes creeps into this column, that I would say it is. But, Windows is not a virus. Here’s why.

Here’s what viruses do. They replicate quickly. Hmm. OK, Windows does that.
Viruses use up valuable system resources, slowing down the system as they do. Okay, Windows does that too.

Viruses will, from time to time, trash your hard disk. Okay, Windows does that too.

Viruses are usually carried, unbeknownst to the user, along with valuable applications and information. Hmm again. Windows does that too. Looks like my argument is falling apart.

OK. Viruses will occasionally make the user think that their system is too slow, making the user buy new hardware. Dagnabbit. Windows does that too.

Someone once told me back in my Air Force instructor days, “never ask a question you don’t know the answer to”, and here I have developed an argument (that Windows is not a virus), that seems to be unsupported by the facts.

But wait. Although all the above evidence points to Windows being a virus, I’ve missed some fundamental differences between viruses and Windows.

Viruses are well supported by their authors, run on different kinds of computers (except Macs, of course), their program code is fast, compact and efficient, and they tend to become sophisticated as they mature.

See, I was right all along. Windows is not a virus.

It’s a bug.

© 2005 Peter F. Zimowski