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Bill Gates tries to install Movie Maker

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Re: Bill Gates tries to install Movie Maker

#11
post #3

I’m quite shocked Bill Gates’ email was so nice. Can you imagine if it had been Linus Torvalds or Steve Jobs? Maybe that explains how it got that way.

I'm much more shocked about how poorly-written Bill's email is. He sounds like he's almost illiterate. Any random post here on HN is far better written and more understandable. How did this guy get where he is now? Anyway, his account sounds like a typical Windows user experience, especially from that time. I guess that shows the power of having a monopoly: users are forced to put up with it, no matter how awful it i…

[dead]

Re: Bill Gates tries to install Movie Maker

#12
I have recently bought a new PC, without a DVD drive, naturally. And tried to re-install my copy of Microsoft Flight Simulator 2020.

This copy is a "pre order" DVD set I got off of eBay simply because it was a good price, but it's bound to my "Microsoft Account", the same account used in my Windows 11 install.

I spent a good part of an hour trying to get this to install. The Microsoft store (also slow as **) didn't let me do it; it doesn't know of this edition nor my license. I eventually discovered that there is a web page somewhere deep on Microsoft.com, which has a download button, which (after three time-outs) opens a secret link into Microsoft Store which ONLY THEN lets me reinstall the product from the Microsoft Store.

So I must admit I read that with great joy. Yeah Bill ... Karma!

Somewhat unrelated: The icing on the cake, naturally, is that even a full digital install of the DVD edition of MS Flight Sim "requires" the DVD #1 to be in the drive. But since people don't HAVE physical DVD drives in 2020 and upwards, I use an ISO image. You can in fact make an ISO image with just a few tiny files from DVD #1 without the huge data files, that's sufficient.

You'd think "oh yeah, copy protection" but there is NOTHING about this DVD image that is akin to any copy protection. It just wants these files as part of a drive (or mounted image), which I'm sure they could even detect the difference, as I'm even mounting it with built-in Windows Explorer functionality these days, without special software). I literally don't know why they would force me to present a (virtual) DVD if there is no other checks whatsoever. This makes no sense but to hurt customers.

Somewhat more unrelated: Microsoft still owes me 20 bucks. I once bought a PC with a Windows XP to Vista upgrade coupon. The web site let me select Vista 64 bit, so I gave that a try. Alas, the XP shipped with the PC was 32 bit, so they simply never carried out the order. I called their customer support, where I was nearly chastised in very broken, hard to understand language for selecting the 64 bit version from the drop-down menu. They never carried out the order, and didn't refund my twenty bucks for S&H. Thank God for alternative software distribution methods back then that rhyme with "Pi rate day".

Totally unrelated (really going of on a tangent of story telling now):

Another company that still owes me roughly 20 bucks is Dell. I once ordered a server from them, and discovered that they had a catalog error. Adding the biggest, meanest CPU would not add money to the bill, but subtract several thousand dollars from the total. So using that trick, for some giggles, I configured a server to be around 20 bucks total and ordered it. I pre-paid the total amount. I didn't expect to get the server, of course, but I expected them to contact me and refund my money. Never heard from them.

Re: Bill Gates tries to install Movie Maker

#13

I have recently bought a new PC, without a DVD drive, naturally. And tried to re-install my copy of Microsoft Flight Simulator 2020. This copy is a "pre order" DVD set I got off of eBay simply because it was a good price, but it's bound to my "Microsoft Account", the same account used in my Windows 11 install. I spent a good part of an hour trying to get this to install. The Microsoft store (also slow as **) didn't l…

> Why they would...

It's just tech debt, no particular reason

Re: Bill Gates tries to install Movie Maker

#15
post #3

I’m quite shocked Bill Gates’ email was so nice. Can you imagine if it had been Linus Torvalds or Steve Jobs? Maybe that explains how it got that way.

I'm much more shocked about how poorly-written Bill's email is. He sounds like he's almost illiterate. Any random post here on HN is far better written and more understandable. How did this guy get where he is now? Anyway, his account sounds like a typical Windows user experience, especially from that time. I guess that shows the power of having a monopoly: users are forced to put up with it, no matter how awful it i…

You didn't understand what he was trying to communicate?

Re: Bill Gates tries to install Movie Maker

#18
post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm much more shocked about how poorly-written Bill's email is. He sounds like he's almost illiterate. Any random post here on HN is far better written and more understandable. How did this guy get where he is now? Anyway, his account sounds like a typical Windows user experience, especially from that time. I guess that shows the power of having a monopoly: users are forced to put up with it, no matter how awful it i…

You didn't understand what he was trying to communicate?

There were a few places where the text didn't even parse, probably because of missing words.

Normally, when I see writing that bad (like on a discussion forum like this one), I just dismiss the author and skip the comment. A mistake here or there is understandable, but this was too much.

Re: Bill Gates tries to install Movie Maker

#19
post #3

I’m quite shocked Bill Gates’ email was so nice. Can you imagine if it had been Linus Torvalds or Steve Jobs? Maybe that explains how it got that way.

I think Bill was a lot more aggressive in early Microsoft days. By this point (email dated 2003), Bill had already stepped down as CEO 3 years prior (2000).

Re: Bill Gates tries to install Movie Maker

#20
post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm much more shocked about how poorly-written Bill's email is. He sounds like he's almost illiterate. Any random post here on HN is far better written and more understandable. How did this guy get where he is now? Anyway, his account sounds like a typical Windows user experience, especially from that time. I guess that shows the power of having a monopoly: users are forced to put up with it, no matter how awful it i…

No one reads long emails. I similarly noticed that people don't miss things in my email when I format them like texts or discord messages. He wasn't writing up technical requirements for Moviemaker, he was just sharing his experiences. I also suspect that most people that are as busy as him mainly use their phone to access email. I know 90% of the time I've heard back from, who I consider, busy people, there was a "s…

Not sure the phone part was really true in 2003.

Maybe he was using his iPAQ, though

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