It’s not often that I deliberately set out to trash Windows on this blog, I just don’t see the point of it (though it sure can be fun). I find that the better approach is to highlight the benefits of FOSS. But this email from Bill Gates himself detailing some of his frustrations with Windows XP in 2003 is just too good to pass on.
The message deals with Mr. Gates’ frustration with trying to install a MS application called MovieMaker. It really is worth reading the whole text, but just to give you a preview, here are some of the best quotes:
So I gave up [on trying to find the download] 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 site was pathetically slow but after 6 seconds of waiting up it came.
[After installing some updates] it told me to reboot my machine. Why should I do that? I reboot every night — why should I reboot at that time?
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. [...]
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.
As I said, good stuff.
Tags: bill gates, frustration, windows, xp