Re:Moronic... (Score 1)

The problem is that many programs are stupidly designed. Windows is one of the worst. Some time ago I was using a computer at the computer lab (every student gets his own account), and I wanted to change the background. I couldn't. Since allowing access to that setting also allows changing screen configuration and a few other things. That's plain stupid. And there are a million things like that (after a while of getting the same answer, I just stopped asking, since they weren't willing to switch to linux or anything else that's decent...).

I agree completely. I've become accustomed to using the built-in calender in Windows under the "Date and Time Properties". Its not much, but this calendar is very simple and easy to access--just double-click on the clock on the taskbar. But on a non-admin user, you can't do this. Instead of showing the calendar and making it read-only, Windows refuses to show the calendar at all. (The Date and Time Properties applet also shows an analog clock.) I know there are other, probably better ways, to get a calendar (ssh into my box at home and run ncal, or look online) but the point is that a non-admin user on Windows is restricted too much, so much that they have to change their work habits. I'm sure there is a way to give non-admin users access to the time, but it is not the default behavior. And I doubt you can have fine-grain control to allow users to view the time settings without changing them.

Even worse is that none of these problems will be fixed until, at best, a very long time. (I'm not waiting for Vista.) Thankfully we have open source...