“Dear Sir Bill Gates; invoice enclosed. Prompt payment is expected,” Guy J. Kewney writess for newwirelessnet.com, “Please find enclosed my invoice for £1,200 sterling for administrative and consulting work, caused by the need to repair Microsoft sabotage. I dare say you’d like details.”
MacDailyNews Note: Guy, Bill Gates is busy financing U.S. newspaper purchases with his ‘charity.’ Please send invoice directly to Steve Ballmer – and do it quickly, before he deploys his golden parachute, too.
Kewney continues, “Last night, your organisation destroyed about three hours’ worth of work I’d done.”
Kewney explains, “The work was a set of notes being made in a text editor which I am required to use by one of my clients. All the files were open last night, when a family emergency occurred, and I was unable to devote the ten minutes required to closing them down. I was logged into a remote system with a one-time login, which I cannot get clearance for again till Tuesday. And I had several Web sites open on my desktop.”
“During the night, Microsoft took it upon itself to update my computer. I arrived at work to find a message stating: ‘Windows recently downloaded and installed an important security update to help protect your computer. This update required an automatic restart of your computer,'” Kewney writes.
Kewney writes, “I have gone to some trouble to ensure that this doesn’t happen. I have set Windows Update to ‘custom’ – meaning that I will decide which updates I need to install, and how the update will be handled. And when an update says “this requires a restart” I have always specified that I will restart the machine at a time of my own choosing.”
Kewney writes, “When you chose, on your own initiative, to disregard all my precautions and reboot this PC last night, I not only had several notes in progress; I also had about a half-dozen Web browser windows open. It has taken me the best part of three hours to try to recall what I had discovered, and where – and I honestly doubt I will be able to recover the majority of those URLs. They took considerable research to find.”
“This event isn’t the only example of Microsoft’s assumption that my own preferences can be disregarded in favour of Redmond’s whims,” Kewney writes, “…The word for this behaviour is ‘arrogant.’ It will come back to haunt you.”
Full article, a funny read, here.
Related articles:
Bill Gates’ ‘charity’ foundation finances U.S. newspaper purchases – August 21, 2006
A company and its officers that have repeatedly demonstrated that it is above the law will not have the word arrogant in its lexicon. Eventually, Microsoft will assert its power of imminent domain everywhere. Then, Clippy will become the Minister of Information.
Rats are living the sinking ship. They already have their Billions. See how the M$ falls one day.
Rats are living the sinking ship. They already have their Billions. See how the M$ falls one day.
I sympathise with the guy, happpened on my XP machine last week, lost 2 hours worth of accounts due to MS update and restart.
Slowly switching my business to Apple.
Got one PC and one server to go, and then I can stick two fingers up to M$. Just wish Apple would hurry up with a decent spreadsheet and then I’ll be totally free, free, oh god free….(sorry ex MS IT guy who has seen the light…better late than never).
Do I get a prize for my first post?
Kewney writes, “When you chose, on your own initiative, to disregard all my precautions and reboot this PC last night, I not only had several notes in progress; I also had about a half-dozen Web browser windows open. It has taken me the best part of three hours to try to recall what I had discovered, and where – and I honestly doubt I will be able to recover the majority of those URLs. They took considerable research to find.”
She means she does not have a ‘history’ feature with her browser?
Hmmmmm????
1) Buy a Mac. Period. End of sentence.
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2) Note to Apple. Please read above. Please never be so stupid.
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N.
If all the Window’s users hadn’t already gotten a clue from the Windows “Genuine Advantage” program (who’s advantage? MicroSoft’s!), their ill-planned anti-piracy tool disguised as a “critical update” about this sort of behavior, they ain’t gonna learn now.
It’s all about the law of supply and demand. Window’s users supply (money, loyalty, market share, captive audience…) what Microsoft demands.
Simple, nyet?
marcus28-
Welcome aboard!
Once you go Mac, you never go back, baby.
Once-upon-a-time we found out that stones were better than wood and started to use stones more.
We called it the “stone age”. Which ended.
Then we found out that bronze worked pretty good. Hence the “bronze age”.
Which ended.
A bunch of years later we dug into the ground and found this black stuff called “oil”. It was good: it powered our desires and ruled the world.
This “oil age” will end too.
Then comes along this guy who says his computers are better than everyone elses. To prove it…he makes sure that he controls everything and everyone to force it down the common man’s throat. This is the “Micro$oft Age”…
Which will…you guessed it…end.
So its a cycle you see. If Mr. Gates wants to continue his ways about him…he will find that society will catch up to his practices, and eventually put him out of business.
Dear Mr Kewney,
You don’t (know how to?) save files
You can’t configure update settings
You don’t (know how to?) save URLs
Your client can’t be arsed setting you up properly
You’re too stingy to afford a quick connection
all these add up to:
You voluntarily risk losing your work, all by your own incompetence
Advice: use a notebook (a paper one) and a pencil. Don’t forget to buy an eraser, too. Something tells me even that sort of technology might be a trifle over your head.
with kind regards,
Helpdesk Guy
MW = without. As in: users without a clue.
And still on Windows? LOL. These Windoze users are abused and ask for more apparently. And then they spout about the Mac not being a real computer.
What a joke.
If something even slightly similar to that should happen to Macs there would be riots in Cupertino and people willing to burn the entire Infinite Loop block. How comes Windoze sheeps keeps buying into each? Idiocy?
Arrogant would be a good word for there operating systems. Pop-ups all over the place telling you to do this or that when you really don’t care to do anything. That’s really one of the most annoying things about Windows is it is constantly harrassing you that you have a wireless connection or an update is available. Why doesn’t the operating system warn you once and just leave a silent icon and that’s it. But know it has to keep popping in your face.
That’s why I use OSX as well. It never gets in your face damanding you to do this or that.
How can anyone anymore justify using Windows when there is a rock solid alternative that is SO better?
Global productivity must be down 40 points because of Microsoft..
Look at this on their latest offorts to patch the patches that are crashing IE and other progs:
“Computers running x64-based versions of Microsoft Windows Server 2003, along with Service Pack 1 and Windows XP Professional x64 Edition, are affected, if the MS06-040 update has been installed. Only 32-bit programs can encounter problems, Microsoft said.”
Uuuuughh? This has to be Fred Karno’s circus at work… ( http://software.silicon.com/security/0,39024655,39161644,00.htm )
Way to go helpdesk guy! Way to maintain the tradition of blaming the user in the face of overwhelming evidence that the problem is with the software.
Pay attention! He said that he HAD set Windows update to custom and that he has aways specified that he “will restart the machine at a time of my own choosing.” What’s more, he’s not alone. Lots of people have had similar problems. I avoid Windows like the plague, but in those rare instances where I’ve had to use it, I’ve seen things just like this. Turning off those damned popups on the task bar for instance. They never go away!
Dear helpdesk guy,
I don’t see how you can chalk this up
to user incompetence. A machine should
never reboot without your consent. Even
if it is a setting, it should never reboot
by default. How could you defend that? Another
IT guy trying to justify himself, defending
the complexity and convolution of what should
be simple.
Interesting:
he wants £1200 in damages.
A Black macbook pro with AppleCare is £1228
I imagine that £28 is what he would get for selling his windows machine second hand.
….
smorr >
I’d take his machine off his hands, but he’d have to pay me £28.00.
On another note, Kewney has been an IT journalist since I started in this business back in 1984. During that time, he must have had the opportunity to write a thousand stories about MSFT and their shoddy software. So if it all finally comes and bites him in the ass, I’m really not that bothered – you’re either part of the problem or part of the solution and – for too long – journalists like Kewney and other paid-for MSFT lackeys have been members of the former group.
Helpdesk guy,
What the hell are you doing trolling a Mac site.
If you really are a Windows helpdesk guy, I know you do not have any spare time. You must have 100’s of people on hold while you are surfing the net, trolling Mac sites.
Or do you just have a voice recording that asks the nature of the problem, waits a few seconds for the reply and then interjects, “User problem” and disconnects.
I hate these kind of article’s. They come up every now and then – some poor suffering Windows zombie has an epiphany and suddenly says, “hold on, I’m not taking this anymore!” and then quietly does absolutely nothing about it and carrys on using Windows, putting up with the same old crap day in day out.
If he ‘aint even ‘gonna mention that the Mac doesn’t have problems like this, and that he may switch, then he deserves all he gets.
Helpdesk guy is the typical sort of helpdesk guy I’ve talked to. Arrogant and snotty.
I’ve left unsaved documents open on my Mac for days without nary a worry of whether they would still be there when I returned. yeah maybe get a random power failure or flicker, but I know it isn’t because of my trusty Mac.
So, helpdesk guy you can suck it.
If he was using Safari with Saft, all of his browser windows would’ve opened automatically the next time he launched it.
M
“Steve Ballmer – and do it quickly, before he deploys his golden parachute, too.”
I’m not sure if there is a parachute strong enough to keep Ballmer the Hutt from plummeting to the ground. On the plus side, the newly formed crater lake will provide weary vacationers with respite and a nifty hotspot for sharing tales of angry, fat businessman that once stomped over the planet with their wide-eyed, hopeful children. Survival of the fattest will then fade into legend. [scene]
If he was using Opera, it would do it without a Saft plug in :;
BTW this auto restart after update has burned me a couple of times on my at work computers.
And you can change configurations on Windoze, but have the time it’s pot luck if the configuration change will stay.
Example when you modify your system start up configurations, on reboot you get a little message box reminded you your config files have been changed. You have the option to click don’t remind me again.
I maintain 10 different office PC on a network. Win98 to XP 2. I change start up configs all the time.
I always click the don’t remind me again box. I have NEVER EVER had it work.
Sir Bill should rejoin his Knights who say, “Ni!” Somewhere a shrubbery is waiting for him.
This is the equivalent of sending an auto maker your repair bills for a well-known lemon car model.
All you’re doing is getting into the soup line with everyone else expecting a handout. Good luck, you’ll need it.
As for “sabotage”, it’s not really that. It’s exceptionally poor design. A design he agreed to when he installed Windows. It’s your choice bub, live with it.