Thanks to Wacky Archives for compiling this list of the 25 worse Windows Fail. Maybe we should start relaying more on Mac or Linux to develop kiosks and displays. I don’t know, just a thought.
http://www.wackyarchives.com/featured/25-worst-moments-when-windows-fail.html
Well, something like this couldn’t get unnoticed, and i have had a long laugh when i saw it. For me, it is so funny to see a company like Microsoft not using their own products. They admit they suck, no with word, but with actions and that says a lot !!! 
Courtesy of Fail Blog
This is a letter from Bill Gates to his staff back in 2003, where he is feeling what it takes to use his P.O.S. products.
—- Original Message —-
From: Bill Gates
Sent: Wednesday, January 15, 2003 10:05 AM
To: Jim Allchin
Cc: Chris Jones (WINDOWS); Bharat Shah (NT); Joe Peterson; Will Poole; Brian Valentine; Anoop Gupta (RESEARCH)
Subject: Windows Usability Systematic degradation flameI am quite disappointed at how Windows Usability has been going backwards and the program management groups don’t drive usability issues.
Let me give you my experience from yesterday.
I decided to download (Moviemaker) and buy the Digital Plus pack … so I went to Microsoft.com. They have a download place so I went there.
The first 5 times I used the site it timed out while trying to bring up the download page. Then after an 8 second delay I got it to come up.
This site is so slow it is unusable.
It wasn’t in the top 5 so I expanded the other 45.
These 45 names are totally confusing. These names make stuff like: C:\Documents and Settings\billg\My Documents\My Pictures seem clear.
They are not filtered by the system … and so many of the things are strange.
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.
They told me to go to the main page search button and type movie maker (not moviemaker!).
I tried that. The site was pathetically slow but after 6 seconds of waiting up it came.
I thought for sure now I would see a button to just go do the download.
In fact it is more like a puzzle that you get to solve. It told me to go to Windows Update and do a bunch of incantations.
This struck me as completely odd. Why should I have to go somewhere else and do a scan to download moviemaker?
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.
So I got back up and running and went to Windows Update again. I forgot why I was in Windows Update at all since all I wanted was to get Moviemaker.
So I went back to Microsoft.com and looked at the instructions. I have to click on a folder called WindowsXP. Why should I do that? Windows Update knows I am on Windows XP.
What does it mean to have to click on that folder? So I get a bunch of confusing stuff but sure enough one of them is Moviemaker.
So I do the download. The download is fast but the Install takes many minutes. Amazing how slow this thing is.
At some point I get told I need to go get Windows Media Series 9 to download.
So I decide I will go do that. This time I get dialogs saying things like “Open” or “Save”. No guidance in the instructions which to do. I have no clue which to do.
The download is fast and the install takes 7 minutes for this thing.
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.
Moviemaker is just not there at all.
So I give up on Moviemaker and decide to download the Digital Plus Package.
I get told I need to go enter a bunch of information about myself.
I enter it all in and because it decides I have mistyped something I have to try again. Of course it has cleared out most of what I typed.
I try (typing) the right stuff in 5 times and it just keeps clearing things out for me to type them in again.
So after more than an hour of craziness and making my programs list garbage and being scared and seeing that Microsoft.com is a terrible website I haven’t run Moviemaker and I haven’t got the plus package.
The lack of attention to usability represented by these experiences blows my mind. I thought we had reached a low with Windows Network places or the messages I get when I try to use 802.11. (don’t you just love that root certificate message?)
When I really get to use the stuff I am sure I will have more feedback.
Courtesy of seattlepi
I had to laugh, honestly…….
Even more when i read a few comments that user left on that page:
Looks like Bill got bit by his own monster.
I would have thought his job was to ensure these things get fixed, not just complain about them like the rest of us!
Now he knows why I run Linux. It just works.
The fact that his rant was emailed in early 2003 and the company has continued to make these same mistakes over and over since then is a great indicator of the direction Microsoft is headed: obsolescence. Yes, Microsoft keeps raking in the billions, but not for much longer.
Well, at least they fixed all those problems with Vista…ha, ha, yes, that was a joke!!!
Get a Mac.
The Steve Jobs version:
“If the MovieMaker download site isn’t working by tomorrow at 6 am I will come down there at 6:01 am an choke the living ___ out of all of you.”
This is why I have been using a mac for over twenty years.
This is the reason I gave up on Vista and bought a MacBook. I couldn’t be happier.
Dear Bill,
that’s the job we have to do. Every day …….
Thanks a lot
Someone should tell Billy you can DL it directly from piratebay.org
What can i say……. it made my day.
I know is hard to account for every possible error on a piece of widely used software. But when you go to the extent of alerting about “Catastrophic” errors you should sit down and rethink your coding goals.
http://www.shipmentoffail.com/fails/2008/03/catastrophic-failure/
Seriously, WTF? Apparently the new XP Update is out which should fix some stuff, and hopefully don’t break others. But, if you installed IE8 Beta then you will not get this update because apparently Microsoft is not compatible with Microsoft (crazy Vista error anyone?).
It appears that if you install this update, which you won’t get automatically if you have IE8 installed, you won’t be able to uninstall IE8. It seems you need to uninstall IE8 first, then get the update and then install IE8 Beta again.
I mean, how hard is it to make your products compatible with, well… your products??
I like this article because it is the first one that I’ve seen in a while that doesn’t suck up to internet explorer 8 by talking about how it passes the acid2 test which it doesn’t.
Now, for the sake of argument I’m going to forget about the little ActiveX issue which causes IE8 to not pass the test and go along the lines that it does indeed passes it. Great, now what? Well for starters, is messing up maps, even some with the Emulate IE7 button turned on, security is still an issue and it’s not offering the level of security firefox is offering and it is even breaking it’s own Mircosoft Websites (I’m sure this one will be fixed very soon but it’s funny to point it out).
On top of this Microsoft hasn’t learned from the past and it is creating browser specific innovations which is one of the main reasons their browser sucks inn the first place. To make my point clearer, by adopting technologies that are only available on IE8, Microsoft is doing three things wrong:
Yes I know it is just a Beta but as I said before, if IE7 was a step forward from IE6, why don’t you just fix what it had wrong instead of creating something completely new that is breaking even more things than IE6? No one knows.
Plain and simple, Windows Vista sucks !! To bad, i had to buy my new dell computer with it (no other choice, if i want that model in particular). If it wasn’t ’cause a lot of the programs that i use on a daily basis only runs on Windows (and Mac, but can’t afford one), i would have already switch to Ubuntu. Anyway, my frustration keeps growing as i see and operating system, that doesn’t even recognize when a problem was caused by itself, or it does, but referencing to the error as if some other program made it.
Without any more frustrating words, here i show you the evidence:
