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Microsoft: Because Bugs are Cool
h_orion writes "According to Mr. Gates, Microsoft recieves 'Less than one percent' call volume in relation to bugs. He also blames the users lack of knowledge as a cause of some of these bugs. He goes on to say that the feeling of frustration that people hold towards bugs is a sociological issue, rather than technical saying that people complain about software bugs 'Because it's cool.' Read more in this interview." Boy, where do you even begin...
...face it, you have to be. But a blue screen, or any sort of error dialogue is not purely psychological. I respect my subconscious quite a bit, but I suspect it to be quite incapable of conjuring up indecipherable addresses related to memory...
...either that or I have some extremely low self esteem.
Funny, I used to get lots of letters from irate fanboys who asserted that it was an obvious fake. Not one of them could spell.
Why do you wish it was more like Bugzilla? The KB is, well, a knowledge base, not a bug tracking system. I also find the MS KB far easier to search and than Bugzilla. Nonetheless searching the MS KB can still be frustrating.
Did anyone else notice?
from http://www.cantrip.org/
The Welcome:
cantrip: (kän tRip), n. (Chiefly Scot.)
1. a magical charm or enchantment;
2. an elaborate deception or prank.
Who owns your data?
Didn't get out much in high school eh? All the "cool" kids get hammered and puke everywhere to prove how cool they are. On a more on topic note, it would be interesting to see how many tech support / bug report calls microsoft actually gets. I'd see most users calling whoever sold them their computer or failing that the manufacturer. I'm assuming most direct calls microsoft gets come from their big customers which you would think mostly would be tech support or bug reports and I'm sure that costs a pretty penny.
Check out my life
It turns out Luddites don't know how to use software properly
So does that mean that most people are Luddites? In short, yes. When was the last time that a normal (non-technical) manager wanted to change their computers to Linux?
I have a home computer running XP and a work computer running 2000. Both run for days without a reset. I install patches when they come out.
Of course my Powerbook running OS 10.2.3 hangs 50% of the time when booting lately. Some corrupted file or something. My Mom called tonight and complained that she gets out of memory errors on her IMac when running AOL. Of course, I personally can take care of a Windows box while I am still not completely familiar with OS X.
There is no OS that is dummy proof these days. It doesn't matter if its Apple or Microsoft. If you can't take care of your own computer, you will be up shit's creek at some point or another...
Oh, I know it's real because I think I still have a copy of the magazine in which it first appeared. It was either 'Time' or 'Wired'. It was a highly amusing read, and had questions that only a non-American popular media journalist would've asked at the time. I believe the interviewer was German.
Need a Python, C++, Unix, Linux develop
That is 8 years ago. 8 years ago Microsoft was positively pleasant compared with current behaviour.
So who cares what Bill said (or maybe didn't say) back then?
"Cats like plain crisps"
Give me a break. Microsoft fully refunds your money if your call turns out to be a real bug. You are only charged if you call for technical support or for user error. The system actually works very well and I have had a lot of success in reporting bugs to Microsoft and actually getting them patched or worked around.
Of course it is still generally a lot easier to get a bug reported and fixed with an open source product, but that goes without saying.
>>I've met a number of people whose computers lock up on a daily basis.
Sorry to say, but this sounds like anti-M$ FUD.
I am a developer at a company that produces sofware for Windows/Linux/OSX/Solaris. I typically spend part of my day on at least two of these platforms, but my primary desktop is Windows 2000. Some of our 'linux only' developers used to talk trash about BSOD's and daily lockups, so I entered into a wager with one of our linux developers regarding whose computer would have the longest uptime. So, we both rebooted our computer at the same time and the contest began. I was using Windows 98 and he was using Debian. After 6 months, we called the contest a draw when the boss came walking around with more memory for our computers (more important to him since he was used VMWare for his Windows stuff).
The only application that I have seen cause a BSOD was Netscape 4.7 on Windows 95, and the only lockups were back in the days of Windows 2.11 when the networking was done with DOS drivers or TSR's and the hardware would get stuck on blocking read/write calls. Since the OS was single tasking, if the hardware didn't perform an interupt, you were stuck. This was back in the days when Ungerman-Bass networking equipment ruled the world.
Have BSOD's occurred - sure they have. But the rate of BSOD's that I have seen over the years have been on par with the number of kernal core and seg faults that I have seen with Linux (going all the way back to Slackware ruled linux - back when Linux was unix and not full of all the bloat crap that it has today).
You notice how no one ever says "Windows locks up on me daily" or "I have to reboot daily", but people say "I know someone who has to reboot daily". Sort of like the fact that no one sees aligators in NYC sewers, but every NYC resident knows someone who claims to have seen these alligators.
"Microsoft has made computing accessible to a population who would otherwise not be able to use computers" - B. Kernigha