Dear so-called professional software development companies,
Would you please stop shitting all over my computer ?
I don’t want you to assume that I’m running as root. I’m not.
I don’t want you to register unneeded services or processes at startup.
I don’t want to use autoruns and process explorer to disable your products because you didn’t think it was necessary to include an uninstaller.
I don’t want you to spray your DLLs all over my system. Look, you have a nice little folder just for you, use it. Oh and please, *remove* them when you leave my system.
I don’t want to register your product so that you can harvest my email.
I don’t want to run your “quickloader” because apart from slowing everything else, it’s useless.
I don’t want to run your automatic updates service. Why does every single app in the world want to have a separate process in the background for checking updates ?
I don’t want you to store settings and data all over the registry or the Windows folder. What do you think my home folder is for ? Use it to store my *data*, morons.
And finally, I don’t want to launch a root shell just to remove your desktop icon because you didn’t think it was necessary to drop your rights.
Yours faithfully, dan.
Indefinite Studies 
Why not GNU/Linux?
Games.
This post was not on the OS though, rather on third party vendors who think they can screw your system if they please. But you still have a point, since something like 95% of Windows software is written by people who think they own your system (including Apple, Sun, Google and just about everybody in between).
Exactly how I feel. More and more I just don’t ‘install’ anything. Most of the better open source projects can simply be unzipped and run, which is the natural order of things.
But I sympathize with the author, who apparently wants games and feels stuck with Windoze. Maybe run the games in a VM? If they will run fast enough…
As for Linus’ comment, Linux is not that much better anymore on the ‘install’ score. It is maddening how much of Linux has to be managed with a package manager that ‘automagically’ gets all the dependent packages, etc. It misses the point and weakens Linux as a platform.
Once upon a time DLL’s (shared objects) made a little sense, but with today’s memory and storage costs, the benefits are not compelling, and the downside of stuff breaking because of other stuff is unaceptable.
The Java world mostly gets this right: you can use an existing JVM or bundle one with your application. Many Java applications simply unzip and run, and leave no trace when you remove them.
As God intended.