What are the brains at Microsoft thinking? Since Windows XP what Microsoft has done best is make their programs less user-friendly and more frustrating for the majority of users. Perhaps the super serious computer consumer who spends his life at the keyboard likes the frequent changes, the more difficult applications and the greater options that one can access for occasionally, marginal use. The trouble is most of us are not super serious users.
What’s my beef specifically? The latest computer I purchased came with Windows 8 preloaded. It presented a fairly steep learning curve made a bit more difficult by the absence of instructions at the time. But you live, learn and move on. Soon after I began using it Microsoft encouraged downloading 8.1 with frequent reminder that I hadn’t done so yet. Did I have a premonition that trouble would follow, if I succumbed to those reminders? I ignored them for several months and went along happily with Windows 8 and what it offered. Then came a day I’ll never forget. To keep from seeing the 8.1 reminders again I said to myself, “Why not hit the download now button and get rid of all these irritating reminders? How much different and troublesome can 8.1 be?”
Troublesome would have been a piece of cake compared to what I got. The amount of time it took to download should have given me reason to worry. Once the foul deed had been accomplished I found my monitor staring at me in bright ugly orange. No big deal I thought. I can fix it.
Little did I realize that trouble had come calling in a big way. I turned on my laser printer to copy a document, but my computer informed me it could not find the printer; it didn’t exist. I’ve added a printer or two in the past so I wasn’t worried yet, but I spent nearly an hour unsuccessfully to add that printer. I didn’t panic because I had a wireless color printer too. Guess what I discovered? Yea, the computer had never heard of it. Have you ever noticed that trouble comes in groups of three? Still trying to get the printers working I found a message on my screen telling me my computer was at risk. I had just renewed my security program for three more years. Ready to call Kaspersky to give them a piece of my mind I noticed the shortcut had disappeared from my computer screen. Further investigation showed me I had no Kaspersky antivirus program or any other on my computer any longer.
To make a long story short I sat at my keyboard for five and a half hours while a Microsoft techie asked me the occasional question. Otherwise I watched him try to get Windows 8.1 to accept my printers and get a handle on the Kaspersky problem
Do I think Windows 8.1 is wonderful? Maybe I’m expecting too much, but I figure Microsoft should have at least warned me that by downloading 8.1 I would find a few surprises some of which would be very troublesome, and others I would likely only discover with time. I can’t wait to find them.
Books and banter by W.H.Manke 