“Microsoft executives love telling stories against each other. Here’s one that platforms vice-president Jim Allchin told at a recent Windows Vista reviewers conference about chief executive Steve Ballmer,” David Frith reports for Australian IT. “It seems Steve was at a friend’s wedding reception when the bride’s father complained that his PC had slowed to a crawl and would Steve mind taking a look.”
“Allchin says Ballmer, the world’s 13th wealthiest man with a fortune of about $18 billion, spent almost two days trying to rid the PC of worms, viruses, spyware, malware and severe fragmentation without success,” Frith reports. “He lumped the thing back to Microsoft’s headquarters and turned it over to a team of top engineers, who spent several days on the machine, finding it infected with more than 100 pieces of malware, some of which were nearly impossible to eradicate.”
Frith reports, “Among the problems was a program that automatically disabled any antivirus software. ‘This really opened our eyes to what goes on in the real world,’ Allchin told the audience. If the man at the top and a team of Microsoft’s best engineers faced defeat, what chance do ordinary punters have of keeping their Windows PCs virus-free?”
Full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: Nothing about the Windows morass and/or Ballmer surprises us anymore.
[Thanks to MacDailyNews Reader “Chris” for the heads up.]
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Microsoft CEO Ballmer: Vista consumer launch could slip further – May 24, 2006
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Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer admits to brainwashing his kids not to use Apple iPods – March 28, 2006
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Microsoft’s Ballmer: It’s true, some of Windows Vista’s features are ‘kissing cousins’ to Mac OS X – September 19, 2005
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I noticed some people asking why Allchin would dare say the things he did. The simple answer is that Allchin is retiring upon release of Vista. He wanted Vista to be a ground-up rebuild of the OS but Bill Gates (yup, Bill still calls the shots at Microsoft) wouldn’t approve it. My guess is that Allchin got fed up enough to bail out after this project was released to market.
Unless he cares to do it himself, the bride’s father needs to take his computer to a computer store and have them completely wipe the disk and reinstall the system. Most stores charge about $80 for that service – $100 more if you want your data backed up. A choice example of TCO with “real” computers.
Can’t solve the problems?
He should have been fired!!!
I would never invite Ballmer to my wedding. Unless he of course was the wedding singer.
Not.
“Emil – the ignorant bastards (that would be windows users) deserve every virus they get. It’s like smokers being killed by cancer, they had it coming!”
Most of us have habits that are killing us, Booz (alcoholism), Soda Pop (onset diabetes weight gain, calcium loss), Gum (build-up of plaque in the walls of the arteries), Sunflower seeds (weight gain, too much salt), yes, even smoking. None of these things are particularly healthy, but I don’t think judging someone for an addiction they have is wise, you one the risk of having one down the road or being judged for one you have now. Addictions are real and difficult to kick.
This really opened our eyes to what goes on in the real world
MS didn’t KNOW before?!?!
An admission like that should earn the entire Windows division a ticket to the unemployment office. OMFG.
Contrast this to how we’re told NeXT’s development worked. You coded it, then used it yourself, then went back and fixed what didn’t work. If you can’t make it work, chances are nobody else can (witness MS’s own engineers).
Does MS even USE Windows in-house?? Or are they such a morass that all of Windows’ many problems just get reported into a black hole?
I sadly own a computer with Windows and it the largest period it did not hung itself was like 3-5 days. Usually it died every 2 days or even 2 per day and there is absolutely no chance to avoid this because I do very much usual and right things.
If I would have more money I would but Apple — just to save my time and nerves which erode while I fighting with this sh*t.
Gosh, I can not tell you how much I hate that thing I own, how much I tired of this — SYSTEM processes die, stack conflicts, cache errors, critical falures. And I have the latest WinXP SP2+updates set.
And yes, my hardware itself works perfectly. My problem is only software thing.
@Static Mesh-
The reason why Balmer & Co didn’t do a format and re-install most likily they didn’t want to seem like losers to Balmer friend.
Think about it, having to do a format and re-install is a full admission that their MS OS sucks.
Wow, the only way I could fix your computer is to cry uncle.
Oh, to all the MS fanboys – this is was said during the Windows Vista reviewers conference.
Let’s see you try to spin this?
So much for your great (not) OS – your own MS engineers couldn’t fix it. How’s the everyday user going to be productive?
Oh, and they want to they their users, we can’t fix, clean the virus, malware, spkyware form computers but we can safeguard your PC if you buy our yearly service.
Do you know what really scary – MS fanboys are going to buy into this. A sucker born everyday.
“That’s about the 2,233,445 negative post about MS. Surely MDN has now run out of stories, right? RIGHT??”
Actually, there are as many stories as there are Wndows users!
“That’s about the 2,233,445 negative post about MS. Surely MDN has now run out of stories, right? RIGHT??”
MDN will NEVER run out of stories because I’m convinced there are enough stupid, people that will keep using Winduhz no matter what pain is inflicted. And I”m also convinced Bill will never fire Uncle Fester.
And they make my humor of the day reading, so keep ’em coming–there will be more tales to tell as the rope tightens around M$.
To : No Habits?
Most things you list are habits that we have every capability to change although many don’t for their own reasons.
Lethargy is one. Inertia is another. Fear of change another.
And choosing not to change those habits is as much a conscious choice as is choosing TO change those habits.
It’s hard. Damned hard. I quit smoking 15 years ago and to this day I still sometimes wish I had a smoke. But I don’t becuase I choose not to.
And I don’t punish myself with Windows becuase I choose not to unless of course someone pays me a LOT of money to do so. And then I might.
And at the end, when I can give up Windows and go back to my Mac, it’s like giving up smoking all over again and breathing in the fresh air and realizing there really is something better out there.
So a billionaire top executive (at least salary-wise) spends two full days on a piece-of-shit computer, then turns it over to a group of top engineers for another day or two. Am I the only one who sees the economical madness in this? No wonder they get behind in OS development if one bug-ridden computer can sequester their top people for several days.
apple will one day be the new ms
but without the retarded bosses
Makes sense to me – you could buy a Macintosh and have 100 machines supported by one person, or you can buy Windows and 1 machine supported by several people.
Now the Windows people are “top engineers”, so its obvious that the Windows guy is getting a better deal because of the quality of the after-sales service.
Now it truly makes sense why Corporate IT prefers Windows to Macs – if it wasn’t so tragic, I’d piss myself laughing.
What intrigues me is that Microsoft are charging their users $50.00 per annum for OneCare virus protection. Maybe some users will pay, not realizing that it is possible to design a secure OS. Maybe Microsoft knows it can’t make a good OS anymore so it is getting into the anti-virus market itself.
“why isn’t someone suing Microsoft for all the negative impact Windows had (and obviously still has) on humanity, security, industry…or werever else it’s been used (?) Is it because it’s so difficult to measure or what?”
You ought to see some of the stuff in the End User LIcense Agreement, they practically take no responsibility.
This story is perfect. M$ exists on ignorance.
I wonder if there is any way to find out who this guy is. Man could you imagine this guy’s story as a switcher ad?
MDN Magic Word – Start as in ‘Click here to shut down’
Give me a break. Like smoking (HELLO, IDIOT!) isn’t OBVIOUSLY bad for your health? Like you needed stupid warning messages to tell you OBVIOUS truths? You tell me that you didn’t think that inhaling tobacco for years and years would be BENEFICIAL for you, did you? Stop demanding that people protect you from yourself and get off the martyr train, please!
‘This really opened our eyes to what goes on in the real world,’
Oh my. MS really is staffed with a bunch of blind no-life retards. Do these people not know how to conduct business? Do they think they can determine market needs simply by fiat? Do all of their business plans get formulated in a closed box?
How embarrassing.
When Paul Otellini advised people to get a Mac, it was the prelude to the Apple+Intel deal.
What’s the deal here?
Either Allchin’s defecting to Apple or MS has something to sell. Like OneCare’s protection racket!
Otherwise, Allchin is the secret blogger of mini-microsoft!
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PS. Windows IS just like cigarettes. People didn’t know what they were getting into when MS got on the Internet. “They use Windows at work. That must be what I need at home.”
emil’s analogy works. His attitude doesn’t.
Coolest. Story. Ever.
I’m sure the chairs are flying in Redmond over this one…
Somehow I don’t think Steve came in with the computer screaming “I love this company”
Anyone else think the picture in MDN’s article looks like Lord Voldemort?
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as already mentioned by a few people above, the first thing that came into my mind was Uncle Fester from the Adams Family.
mainly because he is a Clone from Uncle Fester in both brain capacity and appearance.
In case someone forgot how he looks like; ladies and gentlemen, Uncle Ballmer (Uncle Fester):
http://www.addamsfamily.com/addams04/fester.html
and MDN, please use the first picture in my link above for your next Ballmer article, people won’t know the difference ^_^
I found this absolutely hillarious. Just imagine Steve Ballmer sitting in front of a Windows computer screaming and swearing. Stories like this make me feel happy about staying on Mac. There are no viruses and malware here.