The 20 Worst Windows Features of All Time

From Windows 95's Active Desktop to Vista's UAC, a loving tribute to the tools, technologies, and applets that drive us absolutely bonkers.

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17. Shut Down 5 of 21

Some people gripe about how long Windows takes to boot up. Us, we're more aggravated by how long it takes to shut down--and how often it seems to just give up before it's completed the job. Microsoft says that shutting down works better in Vista, and it seems to--but we still get puzzled by the array of different ways to end a Windows session. (Here's a fascinating and revealing blog post by a former Microsoft developer who worked on Vista's Shut Down menu.)