Two Irritations: Gateway & Microsoft

First, Gateway's GX7022E is a sweet Intel Dual Core 3Ghz, 2GB of RAM, 320GB of SATA storage media monster at a very decent price. The best PC I've seen from them in years. However, their decision to stop packing tangible Recovery Disks in the box in favor of "U-Burn 'em Yourself" from a hidden partition on the D drive wouldn't be so bad if the Create Recovery Disk utility actually worked and Gateway's support wasn't so deplorable. I've been hearing these sorts of complaints and other horror stories about Gateway's Customer (I Really Don't) Care department. Guys, you've always come so close to getting it right - shame.

Next Microsoft... I was fine with all the various editions of Windows XP (Home, Professional, Tablet and Media Center) and I'm even good with the fact that Home Edition will be desupported at the end of this year, because it's exactly like Professional without the ability join a domain network (still not sure why that is). Anyway, color me happy! So why do they release Media Center 2005, a trumpeted superset of XP Pro, with the domain functionality disabled??? Wait, it gets better. Media Center 2002 and 2004 could join domain networks and even if you upgraded from either of those to MCE 2005, you would still have the domain ability. But a full install fresh from the box (or on certain Gateway system) and nada! Bupkiss!

One word sums up this post - AAAARRRrrrggghhhhh!!!