There’s nothing more annoying than using someone else’s heavily customized PC. Windows XP takes long enough to boot, but when you have to wait for a half dozen applications like MSN, AIM, etc. load, it gets even slower. It usually takes well over a minute to boot and you don’t get any visual feedback to tell you when it’s ready. I’m used to getting immediate feedback on a Mac, which makes double-clicking and not getting any feedback even more annoying.
Today I had to install software on lots of Dell laptops which had been upgraded & make some configuration changes. Once I got them booted, many of them had Norton anti-virus asking to be activated. I then had to figure out their passwords, which were based on a service ID that was usually unreadable or copied incorrectly. We had 6 people working and we only got a small number of laptops done today and I have to go back tomorrow. The biggest waste of time was waiting for them to boot and getting the password correct.