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Texas senator wants to ban Vista purchases

State agencies need written permission for Aero

Windows Vista gets a lot of grief both in tech circles and the general public — but one Texas lawmaker wants to make it a matter of public policy.

Democrat Texas state Senator Juan Hinojosa recently added a rider to Texas' $182bn budget plan that would ban the state's agencies from purchasing Vista (and all Vista-related technologies) unless they get written permission from the budget board.

The rider was added last week in the Texas senate finance committee, in which Hinojosa serves as vice-chairman. The senate's version of the budget will be up for debate on Wednesday.

Hinojosa told San Antonio Express-News: "We have a lot of problems with the Vista program. It had a lot of bugs. It takes up a lot of memory. It's not compatible with other equipment, and it's supposed to be an upgrade from the XP program that is being used by state agencies, and it's not."

According to the Senate Committee on Finance minutes for March 23, Hinojosa added the anti-Vista rider to the state budget without objection.

One is tempted to speculate Hinojosa received the business end of a BSOD a few too many times to inspire his legislative wrath — but this appears to be just another case of someone taking Vista's unpopular popular opinion on faith. In a brief video interview with the Austin American-Stateman, Hinojosa admits he has no personal experience with the operating system but has "read a lot about the problems they have with this particular software."

And just judging by the rider's title, "Limitation on Purchase of Microsoft Vista Information Technology," it's safe to assume this man isn't the technical wiz to be dictating what software a government agency can use. ®

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