Category Archives: Windoze

Why I’ll Never Buy a Car That Runs Windows, or, Hey Microsoft Are You New At This Business Of End-User Software? :-(

So it’s 3PM Wednesday afternoon, I’m working away on my Windows desktop computer, with the usual dozen-ish windows including a FireFox private-browsing session (which doesn’t save open tabs when closed or crashed), and writing/editing across several files in my text editor (TextPad, FYI)… when ka-plunk, all the windows and background dim or something (things happened too fast for me to remember exactly) and center-screen up comes “Shutting down for system update” (or something like that).

Abruptly. Irrevocably. Not, like my Android phone or my iPad, “System (or OS) update available now, would you like to install it: YES/LATER.” Not, like a shell window to my ISP account which is running some *NIX, “System going down in 5 minutes…” Just, “[MANY EXPLETIVES FOLLOWED BY EXCLAMATION POINTS DELETED] you, Jack, I’m rebooting nyah-nyah-nyah.”

OK, it didn’t say that. But that’s sure what it felt like.

So tell me, Microsoft, how long have you been in the business of writing and selling operating operating systems — less than three months? Or did your entire Windows tech team turn over during the summer, and you replaced them with people who had never coded for users?

Or do you just not care?

Granted, this was probably the update I’d told Update Scheduler to postpone for a month, back in October, when I read about the, ahem, itsy-bitsy-glitch that was deleting everything in the DOCUMENTS directory (not that I let anything go there, as a rule).

I mean, do you show up unannounced at friends ten minutes before the end of a new GAME OF THRONES episode? Turn off the water while people are showering and doing laundry?

If only Windows included some what t6 keep track of the date and time. And had some built-in way to pop up a message to the user. If only.

Realistically, I’m too used to working in Windows and with third-party tools that run in Windows to casually shift OS gears.

But it certainly diminishes my already-ambivalent feelings for your company and products. And makes me even more concerned that if after thirty-plus years, you can still make (what I consider) is a bone-headed, lame, inexcusable, annoying, aggravating, and potentially business-damaging mistake like this, who knows what else you’re doing wrong?

Lucky for me, I only lost a minute or two’s worth of writing. Plus the time to chill out… it was time to take my dog out for a walk out anyway. But I could have been doing something important — and harder to recover from — and expensive or even dangerous to abruptly interrupt.

Like I said at the top, I don’t think I’d want to risk buying any vehicles that run on Windows.

Mmmm, maybe I do want to go take a Linux distro out for a spin… while I’m not in a hurry.