Customer Non-Service #3 (Microsoft Can Suck My Balls Edition)

"Your most unhappy customers are your greatest source of learning..." -- Bill Gates

Bill is full of shit.

Bill was always full of shit. 

I hope the (for now) Mrs. Gates takes half, you rat fuck.

My latest bone to pick with the Colossus of Redmond involves some slightly-annoying, resource-eating "enhancements" that a) I never fucking asked for, b) I never fucking wanted, and c) keep getting fucking turned back on after I fucking turn them off.

Listen Assholes: I paid for the software. I paid for the computer. I will use both as I see fit. You can "suggest" all the nice little fairy apps you'd like to; you can "recommend" whatever setting you want; you can even bombard me with stupid advertising about how much "better" my "Windows Experience" (like using a PC is a life-altering thing?) can be, but at the end of the day I OWN THIS SHIT.

So stop fucking with it.

These new apps I didn't ask for revolve around things I don't care about. If I wanted to know what the weather was in my area, I'd look out the fucking window or maybe go outside.

If I wanted to read the "Top News Stories" as decided by a bot at MSN "news", I'd hop on my browser -- which is not one of yours, by the way -- and go to MSN to read what is essentially enemy propaganda and fluff pieces about celebrutards I'd piss on, if I ever met them on the street.

It's bad enough I can't even play Solitaire on my own PC without advertisements interrupting every 15 minutes, or so.

I have been in the IT industry for 36 years. I have been an (IBM) mainframe operator, a data center manager, a systems programmer, and an automation programmer. Multi-national, multi-billion-dollar corporations have trusted my knowledge, experience and judgement when it has come to running highly-complex, super-expensive systems. In private business, my clients, likewise, trust me to make the right decisions on how their systems operate and what they should do.

I am NOT some fucktarded suburban hausfrau in an unsophisticated podunk backwater trading recipes, gossip and fucking cat pictures on the internet. I am a professional. More professional than anyone at Redmond, if this nonsense is any guide. Stop trying to tell me what I should do, what I should be concerned about, and how I should run my own rig.

I turn the damned things off -- because they only interfere with my work by eating up CPU and bandwidth I could be using more-productively -- only to have your "Automatic Updates" (Gee, thanks...I needed that extra 40 gig just to have those extra 2 fonts), which I also turned off, only to have it do it's thing in the dead of night, anyway -- turn them back on.

It is bad enough that I now have to pay subscriptions for products I used to be able to pay for just once and then own, like Word or Excel, now I have to deal with petty, stupid, unnecessary apps (which are not free, since you're collecting data to mine) that I don't want?

There are wiseacres out there who think they know a thing or two about 'puters an' stuff  who will make the wise-ass crack that they don't have to deal with this shit on Linux or Apple, and I have a choice in this regard, but these are idiots parroting a company line and unaware of it.

Linux is a piece of shit. It always has been. It's chief virtue is that it is not Microsoft which makes it popular with the sort of mindset that believes itself to be "a rebel" but the most-rebellious thing it has ever done is to maybe fart in an empty elevator and run off before the next passenger gets on, considering that a blow against "The Man".

Linux is good for certain (limited. Often VERY limited) applications, and then it sucks ass for everything else.

One can almost smell the pot smoke and bad ethnic food coming off a Linux-powered machine.

Anything Apple is tainted by association with Communism and never works seamlessly with something not-Apple. Apple is to good computing what Kamala Harris is to discreet sexual encounters. Apple is for conformists who like to be told what to think because they can't be trusted -- even by themselves -- to do it right.

I have extensive experience with both. They suck harder than Stormy Daniels in anticipation of hush money.

Microsoft is an industry standard, if only because Gates discovered the secret of making a sophisticated device accessible to knuckle-dragging masses of protoplasm (that he stole or co-opted or purchased those secrets, notwithstanding). It cannot be avoided.

But when my code takes forever to compile because the CPU is busy updating my local climatic conditions (and the OS has been programmed to give such a thing a higher dispatching priority because Microsoft), and when my bandwidth (I have a gigabit connection, no less) is bottlenecked because the picture of Cardi B in the newsfeed must download when no one asked for it, I start to get pissed off.

 I won't even bother calling tech support...because they call me every week.

From Bangalore.

That's only half a joke: I do get the calls, they're not from Microsoft, and "Brian" in Bangladesh is only trying to take advantage of (very old) data he bought from Microsoft -- or which Microsoft's security holes allowed to leak -- so as to scam me. It's amazing how many times my pc "phones home" with a "security issue"....when it's been turned off.

I can promise you these new, unwanted apps that appear on my taskbar unexpectedly probably have more security issues than can be counted.

Stop offering shitty services no one wants and concentrate on making your core product better. Not to mention preventing the Southeast Asians from tying up my phone lines unnecessarily.

Apparently, all your unhappy customers didn't teach you any of that, did they, Billy?

On a different note, I would like to commend a company here.

1-800-Got-Junk is a wonderful, if expensive, service.

Despairing of getting the old Death Star cleaned out in time to turn it over to the new owner, Your Overlord called the junk professionals at midnight some weeks ago, and had an appointment made for 8:30 the following morning.

The guys showed up at 8:20.

The supervisor on the job figured that one truck was not going to be enough. He reckoned correctly, and just as he predicted, I would need three (because Mrs. Overlord, her father, and late husband were all hoarders). 

They guys worked all morning and hauled off three truckloads of worthless shit, no muss, no fuss. And did it before noon.

The cost was large, but well worth it, considering I had been working steadily for six days, 12-14 hours per, and making absolutely no headway. Every time I cleaned up a mess, I found another two messes behind it.

Best money I could (make Mrs. Overlord, considering it was her junk) ever spend.

Your Dark Lord, for all his fabulous qualities, is no longer a young man. The wear and tear on my knees, back and sanity saved was well-worth whatever money Mrs. Overlord had to dish out.