Bill Gates tries to install Movie Maker • Hacker News Board

I feel like exactly none of the people in the replies were able to understand the problem outside of the boundaries of their strictly delineated parcels of Microsoft they "own" :D

Re: Bill Gates tries to install Movie Maker

#24

Post by doubled112 » Mon, Jan 16, 2023, 12:31 PM UTC

zaphodias wrote: post #22

> These 45 names are totally confusing. These names make stuff like: C:\Documents and Settings\billg\My Documents\My Pictures seem clear. Almost forgot what paths on Windows look like lol

It’s a lot to type and there are spaces.

I am glad they switched to C:\Users\billg\Pictures

Re: Bill Gates tries to install Movie Maker

#25

Post by ek9 » Mon, Jan 16, 2023, 12:35 PM UTC

A little irrelevant, but I smirked while reading this from one of the last email excerpts

> But, if you want nothing revolutionary and want to band-aid (which is fine and understandable) then I agree with your plan to give it to Dave.

Re: Bill Gates tries to install Movie Maker

#26

Post by chops » Mon, Jan 16, 2023, 1:04 PM UTC

This has the same energy as the opening of Joe Armstrong's (RIP, Joe) talk, The Mess We're In: https://youtu.be/lKXe3HUG2l4

Re: Bill Gates tries to install Movie Maker

#27

Post by tailspin2019 » Mon, Jan 16, 2023, 1:24 PM UTC

midoridensha wrote: post #6

rayiner wrote: 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…

Some of the typos and spurious spaces make me wonder if this was originally a printed/scanned/bitmap document (since it comes from court filings) and then was later OCR’d back again for publishing online.

But that said, it’s no more poorly written than some of my emails would be if I’m tapping them out in a state of frustration, as he seems to be!

Re: Bill Gates tries to install Movie Maker

#28

Post by Kukumber » Mon, Jan 16, 2023, 1:29 PM UTC

Glad to see nothing has changed, how pathetic

Re: Bill Gates tries to install Movie Maker

#29

Post by dgellow » Mon, Jan 16, 2023, 1:34 PM UTC

tailspin2019 wrote: post #27

midoridensha wrote: post #6

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…

Some of the typos and spurious spaces make me wonder if this was originally a printed/scanned/bitmap document (since it comes from court filings) and then was later OCR’d back again for publishing online. But that said, it’s no more poorly written than some of my emails would be if I’m tapping them out in a state of frustration, as he seems to be!

I felt like the original email had some embedded screenshots, that are now missing. Switching from the website issue to the file system doesn’t make too much sense as written, but if you had a screenshot of the file explorer in—between the text makes some sense.

Re: Bill Gates tries to install Movie Maker

#30

Post by [deleted] » Mon, Jan 16, 2023, 1:44 PM UTC

ek9 wrote: post #25

A little irrelevant, but I smirked while reading this from one of the last email excerpts > But, if you want nothing revolutionary and want to band-aid (which is fine and understandable) then I agree with your plan to give it to Dave.

[deleted]