What is Digg?452 Comments
- Phasmorphage, on 06/25/2008, -2/+375"So they told me that using the download page to download something was not something they anticipated. "
That part cracked me up - ADVIZR, on 06/25/2008, -23/+286BG should've used Google to find it. :P
Anyway, Gates rules. He is a true nerd and keeps it real. Microsoft will have its day in the limelight again in the coming years. - obliviousfool, on 06/25/2008, -2/+253Oddly, Microsoft's Download Center still sucks. It is not user-friendly in the least.
- phrenzy, on 06/25/2008, -17/+258***** Thing SUCKS!
- inactive, on 06/25/2008, -4/+237Hopefully Bill continues to send these notes after he's gone. Their survival depends on it!
- TheSnuffster, on 06/25/2008, -4/+195We'll do it with Windows Live!
- dxprog, on 06/25/2008, -2/+174This e-mail kind of makes it look like Gates was the only thing that kept the Windows train from completely going to hell. I wonder what will happen now that he's gone...
- jiqiren, on 06/25/2008, -11/+162It is truly sad that Gates can chew his team out like this... and still nothing gets fixed. Talk about a completely broken company:
FTFA, As for the message, Gates smiled and said, "There's not a day that I don't send a piece of e-mail ... like that piece of e-mail. That's my job." - digggggggggg, on 06/25/2008, -5/+143His comments seem relatively tame and benign compared to the stuff that Jobs supposedly tells his employees.
- Takuro, on 06/25/2008, -2/+134I was expecting Gates to use some sort of geeky insider Windows lingo to describe his problems, but it was worded in the very manner an average user would use in dealing with the dilemma. It's kind of refreshing to see that even a CEO can bring himself down eye to eye with consumers and see their own product of their perspective.
- joper90, on 06/25/2008, -11/+129Dear Bill,
For all future downloads please go to www.piratebay.com, quick and easy downloading.
kthx - medfreak, on 06/25/2008, -17/+118It also reminded me of that one time when I had to play a game... but it was not compatible with MacOs.
- kuz2r, on 06/25/2008, -11/+100MakiMaki, where do you find this stuff. I loved it, thanks
- spambutcher, on 06/25/2008, -5/+85When I was at MS back in the early 90's - it was widely rumored that Bill would on a regular basis declare in a meeting:
"That's the stupidest ***** thing I've ever heard."
Smart guy - who tells it like it is. Maybe if he was actually as much of a fascist as Steve Jobs is - Vista would've turned out decent. - badjoke, on 06/25/2008, -2/+81Ballmer's going to ruin everything. That guy's such an obnoxious idiot.
- arandomperson, on 06/25/2008, -6/+82I wish I could make billions to send emails like that...
- bratterscain, on 06/25/2008, -3/+75I'm sure heads were rolled. It's pretty bad when the big boss man has to do the unintentional job of bug testing.
- inactive, on 06/25/2008, -4/+72"So they told me that using the download page to download something was not something they anticipated."
This part is ***** win. - SuperIntendo, on 06/25/2008, -36/+99That reminds me of this one time when I wanted to make a movie so then I had iMovie and I opened it and made a movie.
and then there was this other time when iMovie needed to update and I clicked "install updates" and then it was done and I made some more movies. - jman583, on 06/25/2008, -10/+67Vista happened.
- morninglorii, on 06/25/2008, -2/+55There's no Word on it!
- scatteredbomb, on 06/25/2008, -8/+56Except the number of computers that run them...
- redwallhp, on 06/25/2008, -0/+47He should have just downloaded it off BitTorrent... :D
- 1337d00d, on 06/25/2008, -18/+61Bill then secretly switched to OSX
- bxblox, on 06/25/2008, -3/+45What will they do when bill isn't there to yell at them about the things that most rational people would consider to be obvious?
- chris9902, on 06/25/2008, -0/+41It's quicker to search Google than it is the site. Even the new silverlight version sucks.
- jaybol, on 06/25/2008, -3/+44this is classic
- inactive, on 06/25/2008, -1/+39throw chairs, sweat, gibber.
- mentaldingo, on 06/25/2008, -1/+36Why don't they get rid of the add/remove programs dialog and give Windows a dependency-handling package manager like apt?
- kyle212, on 06/25/2008, -2/+36Yea I never understood why everyone hated Bill Gates, I bet he's a pretty good guy, and I bet he would share his own rants about microsoft to us.
- noerrorsfound, on 06/25/2008, -0/+33I think you mean piratebay.org/thepiratebay.org.
- simpleblob, on 06/25/2008, -1/+33This Email is like reading the usual digg's Microsoft comments.
Wonder what Job's emails would look like? - LeonidasStokely, on 06/25/2008, -5/+37He finds it at blog.seattlepi.nwsource.com
- dsmx, on 06/25/2008, -0/+31Next they might realise that people don't want to restart their computer when they install something.
- Ovii, on 06/25/2008, -6/+37I can just imagine Steve Job's smug grin as he reads this.
- inactive, on 06/25/2008, -4/+35No one knows where the moviemaker! went, I guess the guys who were laid off about 5 years ago took it with them as you handed their asses to them.
- dotorg, on 06/25/2008, -1/+32He was already checked out during the Vista development.
MS of the late 00's is Ballmer's mess. - Meep3D, on 06/25/2008, -3/+31That reminds me of this one time I tried to upgrade an original iMac to a newer instance of OSX - 10.0 to 10.3 I think. It wouldn't work as I needed to update the firmware or some such thing. Fair enough.
and then there was the time immediatley after that that I wanted to use the damn computer, but the OSX disk I used was bootable and just displayed the error prompt and did not eject. The computer had no eject button. The keyboard had no eject button. There was not even a hole to stick a pin in to eject the CD. The whole computer was locked in a permenant reboot cycle with no obvious way of actually getting the CD out.
Funny thing, the only way to eject the CD, which took me weeks of searching forums etc, was to hold down some random key combo on boot to pull up a terminal and then use some CLI voodoo to actually eject the thing.
What were you saying about 'It Just Works(tm)' again? - someology, on 06/25/2008, -0/+28I've been waiting for Microsoft to realize this one for many years now.
- KurtangleTN, on 06/25/2008, -1/+27Yeah I agree, I never could understand why Movie Maker was hidden, probably ashamed of it (don't blame them).
- badjoke, on 06/25/2008, -1/+27Yeah, we'll all be sending you messages through Digg's PM system.
- inactive, on 06/25/2008, -2/+28Full text: An epic Bill Gates e-mail rant
Sometimes, software isn't so magical. Even for Bill Gates.
PictureFor the opening piece in our series on Gates leaving daily life at Microsoft, one goal was to give a clear picture of the Microsoft co-founder's role inside the company, as a gauge of the impact his departure will have. As part of that, I went back through the internal e-mails turned over in the antitrust suits against the company, looking for new insights into his personality.
Read on past the jump for one of the gems that turned up, showing Gates in the role of chief rabble-rouser. (Original document: PDF, 5 pages.) It shows that even the Microsoft co-founder -- who champions the "magic of software" -- isn't immune to the frustrations of everyday computer users. Keep in mind that this was more than five years ago, so it doesn't necessarily reflect the specific state of things now. At the bottom, see what Gates said when I asked him about the message last week.
---- Original Message ----
From: Bill Gates
Sent: Wednesday, January 15, 2003 10:05 AM
To: Jim Allchin
Cc: Chris Jones (WINDOWS); Bharat Shah (NT); Joe Peterson; Will Poole; Brian Valentine; Anoop Gupta (RESEARCH)
Subject: Windows Usability Systematic degradation flame
I am quite disappointed at how Windows Usability has been going backwards and the program management groups don't drive usability issues.
Let me give you my experience from yesterday.
I decided to download (Moviemaker) and buy the Digital Plus pack ... so I went to Microsoft.com. They have a download place so I went there.
The first 5 times I used the site it timed out while trying to bring up the download page. Then after an 8 second delay I got it to come up.
This site is so slow it is unusable.
It wasn't in the top 5 so I expanded the other 45.
These 45 names are totally confusing. These names make stuff like: C:Documents and SettingsbillgMy DocumentsMy Pictures seem clear.
They are not filtered by the system ... and so many of the things are strange.
I tried scoping to Media stuff. Still no moviemaker. I typed in movie. Nothing. I typed in movie maker. Nothing.
So I gave up and sent mail to Amir saying - where is this Moviemaker download? Does it exist?
So they told me that using the download page to download something was not something they anticipated.
They told me to go to the main page search button and type movie maker (not moviemaker!).
I tried that. The site was pathetically slow but after 6 seconds of waiting up it came.
I thought for sure now I would see a button to just go do the download.
In fact it is more like a puzzle that you get to solve. It told me to go to Windows Update and do a bunch of incantations.
This struck me as completely odd. Why should I have to go somewhere else and do a scan to download moviemaker?
So I went to Windows update. Windows Update decides I need to download a bunch of controls. (Not) just once but multiple times where I get to see weird dialog boxes.
Doesn't Windows update know some key to talk to Windows?
Then I did the scan. This took quite some time and I was told it was critical for me to download 17megs of stuff.
This is after I was told we were doing delta patches to things but instead just to get 6 things that are labeled in the SCARIEST possible way I had to download 17meg.
So I did the download. That part was fast. Then it wanted to do an install. This took 6 minutes and the machine was so slow I couldn't use it for anything else during this time.
What the heck is going on during those 6 minutes? That is crazy. This is after the download was finished.
Then it told me to reboot my machine. Why should I do that? I reboot every night -- why should I reboot at that time?
So I did the reboot because it INSISTED on it. Of course that meant completely getting rid of all my Outlook state.
So I got back up and running and went to Windows Updale again. I forgot why I was in Windows Update at all since all I wanted was to get Moviemaker.
So I went back to Microsoft.com and looked at the instructions. I have to click on a folder called WindowsXP. Why should I do that? Windows Update knows I am on Windows XP.
What does it mean to have to click on that folder? So I get a bunch of confusing stuff but sure enough one of them is Moviemaker.
So I do the download. The download is fast but the Install takes many minutes. Amazing how slow this thing is.
At some point I get told I need to go get Windows Media Series 9 to download.
So I decide I will go do that. This time I get dialogs saying things like "Open" or "Save". No guidance in the instructions which to do. I have no clue which to do.
The download is fast and the install takes 7 minutes for this thing.
So now I think I am going to have Moviemaker. I go to my add/remove programs place to make sure it is there.
It is not there.
What is there? The following garbage is there. Microsoft Autoupdate Exclusive test package, Microsoft Autoupdate Reboot test package, Microsoft Autoupdate testpackage1. Microsoft AUtoupdate testpackage2, Microsoft Autoupdate Test package3.
Someone decided to trash the one part of Windows that was usable? The file system is no longer usable. The registry is not usable. This program listing was one sane place but now it is all crapped up.
But that is just the start of the crap. Later I have listed things like Windows XP Hotfix see Q329048 for more information. What is Q329048? Why are these series of patches listed here? Some of the patches just things like Q810655 instead of saying see Q329048 for more information.
What an absolute mess.
Moviemaker is just not there at all.
So I give up on Moviemaker and decide to download the Digital Plus Package.
I get told I need to go enter a bunch of information about myself.
I enter it all in and because it decides I have mistyped something I have to try again. Of course it has cleared out most of what I typed.
I try (typing) the right stuff in 5 times and it just keeps clearing things out for me to type them in again.
So after more than an hour of craziness and making my programs list garbage and being scared and seeing that Microsoft.com is a terrible website I haven't run Moviemaker and I haven't got the plus package.
The lack of attention to usability represented by these experiences blows my mind. I thought we had reached a low with Windows Network places or the messages I get when I try to use 802.11. (don't you just love that root certificate message?)
When I really get to use the stuff I am sure I will have more feedback.
When we were concluding our interview last week, I showed Gates a printout of the e-mail and asked if he ever got Movie Maker to work. Gates noted that Microsoft plans to include Movie Maker as part of Windows Live, so people will get the program when they download that online package. The company isn't confirming that officially yet, but's not a complete surprise. See this Wikipedia entry and this related post on LiveSide.net. (Site temporarily down as of Tuesday morning.)
As for the message, Gates smiled and said, "There's not a day that I don't send a piece of e-mail ... like that piece of e-mail. That's my job."
Posted by Todd Bishop at June 24, 2008 11:00 a.m.
Categories: Bill Gates, Gates 2.0, Windows, Windows Live, MSN & Internet Services - gnuyen, on 06/25/2008, -1/+27I'm sure Steve Jobs has written much worse emails about his own products. It's his way.
- 44Bigs, on 06/25/2008, -1/+26That was my first thought too.. I'd love to see some internal Steve Jobs emails. I guess rabid perfectionism is good for something after all :)
- allengeer, on 06/25/2008, -1/+25What does that mean "Microsoft AUtoupdate testpackage2"?
- specialK16, on 06/25/2008, -2/+26Because Job's is such a beautiful and awesome mind, only his mighty self is capable of thinking.
Jesus..... - gavin422, on 06/25/2008, -0/+24Good companies always find the faults within themselves, because they're constantly trying to fix them. Nobody's perfect, and only good companies recognize that.
- inactive, on 06/25/2008, -0/+24I'm a random confirmer of statements.
- aliguana, on 06/25/2008, -1/+25yes! That first email is classic. Bill "gets it". He's just like us... he knows what he wants, and I bet his want-list is similar to your "windows want-list". Shame he's dealing with a company full of incompetents and "erm sorry thats not my department" types. Of course, it's all Bill's doing, he made the company. Before he left he should have implemented a company-wide appraisal/reorganisation/hiring/firing.
- Tyrghast, on 06/25/2008, -0/+21Whats slightly unnerving is all the dev's know that even the big boss isn't happy with the product, yet still neglected to make the necessary corrections.
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