Dear Microsoft,
I can at last once again type using my laptop keyboard. You see, your upgrade to windows 10, which you pop up as a ‘suggested’ upgrade, forced my laptop (L770D Toshiba Satellite) to think that it’s ‘fn’ key was constantly down when it wasn’t. So when I went to type my password it took me ½ hour to figure out what was wrong.
I used the virtual keyboard. I logged in and it only took ½ hour. Then my movies wouldn’t play because you never got the whole codec issue sorted out before, why would you now? Movies, different formats etc etc require codecs… provide them… if it’s a 3rd party codec that’s required, don’t give us a flaky message, just give us a link to a marketplace of codecs that do the job. But I digress.
After several days of adjusting, tinkering, my kids begging for attention, the house neglected, chores undone, I realized I had been in this ‘place’ before. It seemed like I was right back at work in Computer Science debugging a large problem and it dawned on me: I was Microsoft’s Lead QA (Quality Assurance) Tester. But I was desperate to resign.
After days of desperation, blog posts, furniture rearrangements to handle the extra keyboard it took just to get the damn thing running I found an out. Trying to roll back the software to a previous ‘restore point’ I noticed an option to return to windows 8.1 . This option was available only for one month, offer expires soon, not to be combined with any other nice acts offered by Microsoft… because “If you can’t find something wrong in an operating system in 1 month, you never can.” (huh?)
Fearfully I pushed the button… Beads of sweat formed on my brow. It asked me: “So, why do you want to go back to windows 8.1?” I didn’t like its tone.
I’ve been with Microsoft for a while and I knew it was mad. Should I tell the truth? Should I soften the blow? I tried the most basic of my problems with your new OS: “I couldn’t use my keyboard. You locked my function key. Sorry. Do try again.”
I pressed <enter> and a flurry of counters, progress indicators, and reboots ensued. My breath was shallow and silent, lest I disturb the delicate genius at work. Recall, the last time I had pressed a similar button to go up an operating system all hell ensued, even my keyboard rebelled.
The ‘rollback’ was now complete. My screen flickered several times as I nervously watched and a login prompt was presented to me. With a glimmer of hope I used my laptop keyboard to enter my password just as I always had and low and behold: I was back in Kansas, escaped from the land of the Wizard of DOS. (Tell Bill I say ‘Hi’.)
Microsoft did manage to restore my machine to 8.1 and it’s working normally for now (relative to Microsoft’s definition of ‘normal’). You have successfully proved that Microsoft can move backwards but it certainly can’t move forward.
Actually maybe that’s a new direction for you? You are going with $?free for this new operating system, but you sold the other ones for $gazillions? Why not go backwards? Next operating system isn’t windows 8, it’s just a better windows 7? Fix everything that was wrong with that one. Each new operating system, because you’re going backwards, will be harder and harder to fix, hence more and more expensive, but if you actually just fix the damn thing like you were supposed to in the first place, we’d have all been happy with windows 95. If windows 95 did what it was supposed to do, we would have all been happy. So come out with windows 95, the good version and we’ll all dance and cheer! We’ll be so happy, we promise, we’ll let you redesign the look and feel of it because we know that’s your favourite part!
(By the way Microsoft: focusing on look and feel is like trying to find an attractive and sleek way to not do what the user requests. You see if the underlying infrastructure isn’t sound… oh, um, 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10… sorry I’m back, never mind.)
Now to dissuade you from trying to go forward, because, just to remind you, we all know you’re bad in that direction, let me tell you something about a $free operating system. My Zayde (Yiddish: Grandfather) would often place an order with a local butcher. The butcher knowing my Zayde would put in a Knish for him. A knish is ball of chopped meat and seasonings coated in a ‘light’ dough and fried. My Zayde didn’t happen to like knishes and when I asked why he was so unimpressed free extra to his order he said: “It doesn’t cost anything and it isn’t worth anything!” From that day on, that’s what I thought of knishes and I now associate windows 10 with knishes.
Yours truly,
Windoes Uzr
