(FORTUNE Magazine) – I am depressed. I am also frustrated and worried about my future. And it's all Microsoft's fault. Pay attention, dear reader: The confession that follows may help you steer clear of my tortuous path.

My problem? I put all my faith in Microsoft software. I mean all my faith. I use Microsoft Windows 95, Microsoft Windows NT, Microsoft Office, Microsoft Word, Microsoft Excel, Microsoft PowerPoint, Microsoft Schedule+, and Microsoft Outlook. The only non-Microsoft software I use is Netscape Navigator, CyberMedia First Aid, and a few games and utilities.

This is not simply a matter of personal choice. Last year, right after I started working for my current employer, a venture-capital partnership called New Enterprise Associates, I recommended that everyone in the firm start using Microsoft software. They took my advice, of course, given that I am such a world-renowned expert on computing. Since then, we've unloaded our Novell NetWare servers, our WordPerfect word-processing software, our Apple Macintoshes, our Quickmail E-mail software, our Now Up-to-Date and Starfish Sidekick calendar software.

So far, this has been a good thing. Standardizing on one word processor makes it easier to share documents. More of us use E-mail to share messages and information, and we communicate more easily with the executives of companies in which we invest. We share our schedules electronically and are almost at the point where the computer can help resolve scheduling conflicts. We can access these resources from hotel rooms and airports. Soon we'll organize our portfolio of companies into a single database to get a better handle on how our investments are faring.

The score so far: Microsoft technology is having a definable impact on our firm's operations and results; put simply, we are using our computers more effectively. My partners must think that I am one smart computer dude.

So what's the problem? Well, a few weeks ago I upgraded to the latest versions of much of the Microsoft software. The new stuff is so disappointing that I am beginning to wonder if I made a mistake putting so much faith in Microsoft.

This disappointment makes me question Microsoft on several levels:

Does Microsoft feel any competitive heat?

I've been using Microsoft software since 1984. So deciding to adopt it wholesale--and to recommend that the firm do so as well--was based on personal experience. I've always believed that what made Microsoft such a powerful company was its ability to solve the key problems its customers wanted software to address. When customers complained about their software, Microsoft fixed the problems. This was not always the case with other vendors, which often would let intramural industry issues or the egos of their senior executives or programmers come between them and their customers.

Now I'm beginning to wonder if Microsoft is so far ahead of its few competitors that it feels it can pay less attention to customers. My upgraded software has mistakes that a lean, paranoid company would not allow. Take, for instance, my E-mail software, called Inbox. The upgraded program still has all the bad and annoying features of its predecessor. For example, one thing any normal human being would like to be able to do is pass along the name and address of one associate to another associate via E-mail. To do this using Inbox, I have to copy and paste first the name; then the street address; then the city, state, and zip code; then the telephone number; then the fax number; and so on. Microsoft's designers must have been living in another world to miss this opportunity to make the user's life easier. (It may in fact be possible to transfer an entire address. But after many, many hours with Inbox, even after asking for assistance from its Clipit help program, with its obnoxious dancing paper clip icon, I still can't figure out how. And if I can't figure it out ...)

Inbox is part of Microsoft Outlook, a program designed to help you organize your desktop. It offers some cool improvements on old Microsoft programs--and it also has some glaring holes. For instance, Outlook now keeps the phone numbers and E-mail addresses of your contacts in one record. Users of old Microsoft software had to store these in separate files. But somehow Microsoft's programmers forgot to make it easy for users to merge those preexisting files automatically when they upgrade to Outlook. Or if the programmers did remember, they hid the feature so well that I was not able to find it. I have now spent several hours merging the data manually--every minute of which I was swearing at Microsoft's designers.

So even though the company has supposedly improved its product, Microsoft has managed to make me feel like a computer neophyte groping for answers that should be readily apparent. Indeed, I feel as though I may have committed myself and my partners to what Novell CEO Eric Schmidt once called the Microsoft Roach Motel--software that's easy to get into and impossible to get out of.

Can Microsoft control its monopolizing tendencies?

This is somewhat related to the first point, in that I've always believed Microsoft put its customers' interests before its own. But I'm beginning to believe that Microsoft wants to have more to say about how my PC looks and feels than I do.

When I installed the upgraded Microsoft Office, I discovered that the program automatically places its menu bar on the desktop without asking if that's what I want. And after installing all my new upgrades, I now have six different ways to write an electronic message. Each method provides an icon for me to click on when I want to send a message, and each icon is a different size and shape. This diversity is no pleasure--it's an annoyance. I now have so many choices that I can't remember which icon does what.

Littering my desktop with disparate icons may be a good branding idea--it's unlikely that I'll ever forget I'm working with Microsoft programs. But I take it as proof that Microsoft's engineers have lost sight of the big picture. Programmers should create software that works harmoniously and intuitively on behalf of the customer. Instead, I feel as if I am fighting Microsoft for the right to use my own computer efficiently.

Can Microsoft learn to respect the risk that computer dudes take in recommending technology for their companies?

Most of you people reading FORTUNE have to deal with people in MIS--you know, the people you call when your PC screws up. You couldn't care less what products are used, as long as they work and solve problems without creating problems for you. When they don't work, you go looking for the person who made the recommendation and try to nail him to the wall.

In the case of New Enterprise Associates, that would be me. For those of you actually in MIS, you know the feeling I have just about now. You finally sucked in your chest, put your head down, and recommended a specific set of products and technologies to solve a problem. It didn't work, and suddenly everyone's decided that you screwed up.

Software providers that work successfully with large companies try to help MIS people avoid this feeling. They do everything they can to make sure the solutions MIS people recommend actually work. IBM has a long history of doing precisely that, with the result that it is still the largest company in computing.

Microsoft does not have a clue how to provide such solutions. It has sold software for individual desktop computers, and it still does that well. But now it wants to extend massive software programs all across the corporate network, and it doesn't understand how to make that process easier for MIS people. In its desire to spread its name, it is creating real problems for the MIS guys--who are in some ways now its most important customers.

That said, let me be very clear about one thing: Microsoft's new software has some very pleasant surprises. For instance, the new version of Microsoft Word has taken to reminding me that I write complex sentences and keeps telling me to simplify them, as well as indicating instantly when I misspell a word (and sometimes even correcting it without asking). The new software also has some cool features for using your PC when you're online.

I'm just wondering if things haven't gotten a little out of hand now that the competitive pressures that helped spur Microsoft to great heights have weakened. I'm wondering if perhaps Microsoft is becoming what the geeks call self-referential--worried more about issues inside the company than issues in the real world. I'm wondering whether I'm going to regret trusting that Microsoft would keep performing as it has in the past. Indeed, I'm wondering if I will have to face my partners, make a mea culpa, and recommend that we find other software suppliers--if only to protect ourselves from overdependence on a single, monopolistic one.

What a choice! Now you can see why I'm depressed and frustrated. I didn't want to have to worry about this kind of thing. I thought I could focus on my work and my new career. Instead, I'm feeling more worried and less secure.

REPORTER ASSOCIATE Eileen p. Gunn

STEWART ALSOP is a partner with New Enterprise Associates, a venture capital firm. Neither he nor his partnership has financial interests in the companies mentioned. Alsop may be reached at stewart_alsop @fortunemail.com