CibbuanoBill Gates' 2003 email where he is not happy with Microsoft
June 30th 2008 02:06
Along the way, though, things became increasingly sticky... as the biggest software company in the world, Microsoft drew the attention of hackers and critics, who sought to pick apart the company's failings.
As Gates removed himself further from the reins, Microsoft became increasingly contemptuous of users, pushing us around with ineffective DRM and stumbles in Vista. Many of us have had bad experiences with Windows - I know I have - and my response to that was to switch to Linux, where, I still have problems, but it's possible for me to fix them - and I enjoy it!
On BoingBoing, I found a link to an email that Bill Gates sent to a Microsoft team, complaining about how hard it was to use the online download system.
He tries to download moviemaker from microsoft.com, and is shocked to find out how difficult it is:
"I tried scoping to Media stuff. Still no moviemaker. I typed in movie. Nothing. I typed in movie maker. Nothing.
So I gave up and sent mail to Amir saying - where is this Moviemaker download? Does it exist?
So they told me that using the download page to download something was not something they anticipated."
So I gave up and sent mail to Amir saying - where is this Moviemaker download? Does it exist?
So they told me that using the download page to download something was not something they anticipated."
The worst part, Bill finds, is that Windows Update insists on downloading updates, even though that's not what Bill wants to do. I've had this experience before, and I never enjoyed it. It's one reason that I felt disgusted using Windows:
"So I went to Windows update. Windows Update decides I need to download a bunch of controls. (Not) just once but multiple times where I get to see weird dialog boxes.
Doesn't Windows update know some key to talk to Windows?
Then I did the scan. This took quite some time and I was told it was critical for me to download 17megs of stuff.
This is after I was told we were doing delta patches to things but instead just to get 6 things that are labeled in the SCARIEST possible way I had to download 17meg.
So I did the download. That part was fast. Then it wanted to do an install. This took 6 minutes and the machine was so slow I couldn't use it for anything else during this time.
What the heck is going on during those 6 minutes? That is crazy. This is after the download was finished.
Then it told me to reboot my machine. Why should I do that? I reboot every night -- why should I reboot at that time?
So I did the reboot because it INSISTED on it. Of course that meant completely getting rid of all my Outlook state."
Doesn't Windows update know some key to talk to Windows?
Then I did the scan. This took quite some time and I was told it was critical for me to download 17megs of stuff.
This is after I was told we were doing delta patches to things but instead just to get 6 things that are labeled in the SCARIEST possible way I had to download 17meg.
So I did the download. That part was fast. Then it wanted to do an install. This took 6 minutes and the machine was so slow I couldn't use it for anything else during this time.
What the heck is going on during those 6 minutes? That is crazy. This is after the download was finished.
Then it told me to reboot my machine. Why should I do that? I reboot every night -- why should I reboot at that time?
So I did the reboot because it INSISTED on it. Of course that meant completely getting rid of all my Outlook state."
And then it gets worse as Bill realizes that there's a bunch of installed crap on his machine that he doesn't know anything about. It's not a virus, it's just Microsoft trying to make sure his machine is up-to-date - in the worst, most user-frightening way.
Finally, Bill thinks he's gotten to the Moviemaker download part of the process and installs a whole bunch more stuff:
"So now I think I am going to have Moviemaker. I go to my add/remove programs place to make sure it is there.
It is not there.
What is there? The following garbage is there. Microsoft Autoupdate Exclusive test package, Microsoft Autoupdate Reboot test package, Microsoft Autoupdate testpackage1. Microsoft AUtoupdate testpackage2, Microsoft Autoupdate Test package3.
Someone decided to trash the one part of Windows that was usable? The file system is no longer usable. The registry is not usable. This program listing was one sane place but now it is all crapped up.
But that is just the start of the crap. Later I have listed things like Windows XP Hotfix see Q329048 for more information. What is Q329048? Why are these series of patches listed here? Some of the patches just things like Q810655 instead of saying see Q329048 for more information.
What an absolute mess."
Yes, what a mess...
*this image is from Eco Interactive
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