With enthusiasts like this, who needs enemies?

Mac fans certainly have enjoyed no shortage of fun with the many delays and feature cuts of Windows Vista. Apple Computer itself has gotten in on the act.

Now, even hard-core Windows enthusiasts (yes, they exist), are joining in.

In a posting last week, Windows blogger Paul Thurrott took Microsoft to task for its execution of the new OS.

Thurrott focuses less on the timing and more on the negative comparison between what Microsoft has promised with the new OS, and what he says it stands to deliver when it does get Vista out the door.

In many cases, he says, Microsoft is simply copying Mac features like Spotlight search and translucent windows. Thurrott notes that in many cases Microsoft appears to have missed something in its implementations. For example, among Vista's many translucent windows, he says it is difficult to know which of the screens is actually open.

Thurrott starts to end on a positive note for the folks in Redmond. "I don't hate Windows Vista, and I certainly don't hate Microsoft for disappointing me and countless other customers with a product that doesn't even come close to meeting its original promises," he writes. "I'm sure the company learned something from this debacle, and hopefully it will be more open and honest about what it can and cannot do in the future."

Lest that get read as a mixed review, though, he reiterates his main point. "But you'd have to be a special kind of stupid to look at Windows Vista and see it as the be-all, end-all of operating systems."