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Comcast Drops Microsoft

Posted by kdawson on from the blue-screen-of-television dept.

Frosty Piss writes "Comcast plans to drop Microsoft's television software and on-screen program guide from its digital cable boxes. The cable company will replace the Microsoft technology with GuideWorks software — Comcast is a part owner of GuideWorks. Comcast has been the lone cable company in the US using Microsoft technology for set-top boxes, and only in the state of Washington, Microsoft's back yard." The Microsoft offering has a solid presence in Latin America. The company is no longer trying very hard to market it here at home.

4 of 146 comments (clear)

  1. Good riddance by Aqua+OS+X · · Score: 3, Interesting

    I had no idea MS was to blame for that god awful cable box software. I thought that was Motorola's doing.

    Nevertheless, good riddance ... nuff said

    --
    "Things are more moderner than before- bigger, and yet smaller- it's computers-- San Dimas High School football RULES!"
  2. Guideworks blows by hansamurai · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Looking at the Guideworks website, it looks like the same crap that was part of the reason I dropped Comcast months ago. This really isn't a big deal as the Microsoft switch affects a relatively small portion of people compared to how many Comcast serves. The thing is, Guideworks software is a pile of crap, the UI is absolutely horrible, and I had mandatory updates to it remove useful functionality and even lose some of the shows I had saved on the box's hard drive. But really, the user interface is as bad as it gets. It's unresponsive, randomly locking up for seconds and sometimes even a full minute on end, and then all of a sudden all the buttons you pressed during the lockup (thinking maybe you just didn't press that remote button hard enough...) queue up and are executed immediately causing even more problems.

    Comcast was supposedly talking to Tivo about replacing their Comcast/Guideworks software with the much loved Tivo software. Where is that?

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    Reviewing just the first hour of video games.
    1. Re:Guideworks blows by Chris+Kamel · · Score: 3, Interesting

      It's not the software's problem, I'm a Comcast customer living in WA. Everybody around here complains about the box (including those making the MS software themselves) and nobody is expecting things to get better with the switch because most of the problems are with the firmware of the box, not the software.
      That's why your complaints about the box with the Guideworks software are exactly my complaints about the box with the MS software, same locking up, same queuing up of the button presses, same everything.

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  3. Bringing it in by Applekid · · Score: 4, Interesting

    This probably has less to do with Microsoft's guide sucking as it has to do with Comcast already having an on-screen guide software suite. For something so critical, one would think that Comcast would have been 100% behind the home-grown option.

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    More Twoson than Cupertino