(FORTUNE Magazine) – I want to be the first to congratulate the U.S. Department of Justice on its creativity in figuring out how to use its consent decree to protect Windows users from Microsoft. All along I thought the people in the Justice Department were concerned with issues like fair competition, trade rules, social justice, prosecuting major criminals...you know, the usual governmental kind of stuff. I also had the impression that folks in Washington were a little behind the curve in understanding computing technology.

I never thought they would figure out what the real problem with Windows is, and then tell Bill Gates how to solve that problem. It's like Eliot Ness using the income tax rules to bring down Al Capone. Only this time Eliot Ness is played by both Janet Reno and Joel Klein, the chief antitrust attorney at Justice, and he's using a loophole in the consent decree to get Microsoft to redesign Windows so that it is usable.

The plain truth is that integrating its World Wide Web browser--called Microsoft Internet Explorer--into Windows has been the wrong thing to do since Microsoft announced its intention to do so two years ago. The Justice Department is simply the first organization to stand up in public and say so. Actually, the U.S. government is the only organization capable of telling Microsoft what to do, since there is no competition left to provide an alternative.

Let me be clear about this: I am not saying that the Department of Justice is justified in charging Microsoft with anticompetitive behavior. What I am saying is that by telling Microsoft to keep the browser separate from the operating system, the department has done precisely the right thing. It's the right thing because the only result of integrating the two will be an unusable mess, prospectively called Windows 98.

Windows as it currently exists is not particularly easy to use. There are several reasons for this, the primary one being that Windows has never been designed to be usable. Windows is less a product than an accumulation of decisions Microsoft has made over the past 20 years to render itself first competitive and then dominant. The different pieces of Windows--the individual systems for filing, networking, printing, managing tasks; even the design of the user interface--have been added to the core at different times and for different reasons, without any overall framework for how to keep the whole thing usable.

How dysfunctional is Windows? One example: I use my notebook computer at work and at home. At work I put it into a dock that is connected to our network. At home I put it into a dock and use my modem to dial into my company's network. Every time I tell my modem to call from home into the company network, I get a dialogue box that asks for a "domain" password. I've learned that if I just hit the enter key on my keyboard three times the dialogue box goes away and the computer connects to the network. But that dialogue box drives my logical self crazy. I have spent hours trying to figure out why Windows asks me a question when it doesn't seem to care what the answer is. I've called Microsoft to figure this out. I still have no idea why Windows does this.

This is life with Windows. Windows does things that cannot be explained by human beings, or diagnosed by computer people. So you learn to live with the software.

The question: When will Microsoft stop trying to compete with every software company that makes $100 million or more in annual revenues long enough to make Windows a really usable system? When will Microsoft develop a version of Windows that resolves the conflicts and logical inconsistencies introduced at each stage of Windows development?

The answer, according to Microsoft: never. The answer, according to the Department of Justice: now.

Microsoft didn't have time to do this, because it was too busy delivering a new version of Internet Explorer. The new version is equipped with an option that makes the browser look as if it's already integrated with Windows. This feature is called Active Desktop, and it modifies Windows' user interface in two ways: It updates your computer continually with new information, and it makes the Web browser seem like the primary way for you to look at files on your hard disk or local network, even if you aren't connected to the World Wide Web.

Simply put, Active Desktop is a disaster. Windows is not designed to use the visual metaphor of a desktop. Instead, Windows makes it simple for users to open and move among many programs in their own on-screen windows (hence the name), without always returning to a visual desktop. Active Desktop throws lots of active information--data collected from servers on the Net or on your corporate network--behind all the windows you've opened to get work done. In other words, the very first thing Active Desktop does is force you to choose between getting work done or looking at this supposedly cool information flowing into your computer.

That raises the issue of whether the info really is cool. I've been in the publishing business for 20 years, and one of the few things I've learned is that good information does not come free. Active Desktop proves this. Your primary content selections are the following: Microsoft Network (what a surprise!), MS-NBC (again!), Disney, Pointcast, Warner Brothers, and AOL Preview Channel. Disney? Warner Brothers? At work? Excuse me?

If you actually try to get any of this stuff, just wait. Literally. I use a very fast, dual-processor machine running Windows NT at my office. It is connected to the Internet through our local network at T-1 speed, which is about 300 times faster than a 28.8 modem. And Active Desktop brings it to a screaming halt.

Furthermore, the World Wide Web being what it is, Active Desktop often can't find what it's looking for, in which case it tells you that it can't. And, in a brilliant marketing move, it replaces your entire desktop with the message ACTIVE DESKTOP ERROR RECOVERY.

So far everyone I know has chosen to uninstall Active Desktop. I removed Active Desktop within 48 hours of installing it.

Imagine this: Since Dec. 7, 1995--when Microsoft made its well-publicized, strategic decision to reorient itself to the Internet and "Webify" all its software--Microsoft has not spent any serious time redesigning Windows to make it easier to use. Instead, it has focused all its efforts on competing with Netscape by changing, once again, the way Windows itself works. And, thus, my computer is slower, crashes more frequently, and delivers really up-to-date but generally useless information to a part of the screen that I can't usually see. This is progress?

So while Microsoft gets out there and talks about how it has always made its software cheaper and more functional, and about how the U.S. government doesn't have a leg to stand on, just ask yourself: Do you really want Microsoft's Internet Explorer browser integrated into Windows? Do you really want Microsoft even more in charge of your user interface?

REPORTER ASSOCIATE Henry Goldblatt

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