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Bill Gates: "Someone decided to trash the one part of Windows that was usable?"
- oihuyjfrgtdfghj 16y agoI tried to download it - their new simple solution is to include it as part of Windows Live. So I want a simple movie editor to clip 5secs off the beginning of a home movie - BUT to do this I have to sign up for an MS specific hotmail account, create a windows passport (I thought they had abandoned that?) get Windows messenger, windows photo viewer and be included in a whole bunch of MS specific social websites. So I found a torrent of Movie maker 2.6 for XP - it works perfectly on Win7.
- robryan 16y agoI guess in the bubble over at microsoft they assume everyone that uses windows will defiantly want windows live anyway.
- maukdaddy 16y agoOk take 5 minutes to learn the following, and you won't make the mistake again: definitely. def-in-it-ely Always say it like this as you type.
- oihuyjfrgtdfghj 16y agoPerhaps a true windows believer would 'defiantly' want Windows Live ?
- maukdaddy 16y agoNo, a true windows believer would defiantly sign up for GMail.
- auxbuss 16y agoI thought we were de-finite-ly geeks around here.
- Elepsis 16y agoYou know, no one took away the check boxes that let you choose which Windows Live programs you want to install when you're trying to run the installer. The installer doesn't even download any of those apps if you leave them unchecked. If you don't want Messenger, Photo Gallery, or even to sign up for a Windows Live ID, you don't have to get/do those things. Most people find that this is actually helpful, though, because signing up for (or using, since the vast majority of folks already have one) a Live ID enables a bunch of convenient features like easily uploading your photos and videos (either to Microsoft's services or to Flickr, YouTube, Facebook, etc.) And most users who use Movie Maker also want to, for instance, organize their photos. Let's not forget that iLife also comes as a suite for a reason. On the other hand, signing up for a new throwaway account just to trash Microsoft... yeah, that's classy. (Usual disclosure: I work at Microsoft.)
- oihuyjfrgtdfghj 16y agoThe problem is that it doesn't tell me it's going to let me have that option. Windows too often decides to do an update that will give me X extra stuff that I don't trust signing up for something like windows live just to get an included free movie player
- alexdias 16y agoWindows also lets you review whatever it is going to download in an update, so you can just disable the download of the X extra stuff that you don't trust signing up for.
- pkaler 16y agoI'd suggest downloading the iWork demo and installing it. http://www.apple.com/iwork/download-trial/ http://www.apple.com/iwork/download-trial/ It's a magnitude easier than installing anything on Windows: Click Link. DMG gets mounted on desktop. Click continue a couple times. But really that's quaint, too. Install iMovie on the iPhone or iPad: Search App Store. Click Install. Enter Password. Expecting users to do anything else at install time is expecting too much.
- microkid 16y agoHow about you just click download? http://explore.live.com/windows-live-essentials-beta http://explore.live.com/windows-live-essentials-beta
- RyanMcGreal 16y agoThe fact that Gates regularly attempted to eat Microsoft's dog food (alas he couldn't get the can open in this case) is encouraging; but ultimately it doesn't seem to have helped much.
- redstripe 16y agoIf he did send out stuff like this often and nobody gave a damn then that's really discouraging. There go my "if I ran Microsoft" fantasies. /sigh I've always imagined one of the reasons Apple products are so polished is because Steve rides people like this all day long until they stop sucking.
- muhfuhkuh 16y agoToo big + too many smart and creative people = impossible to manage without being a complete dictator Google is running into this. Their track record of late is spotty at best, and it's because their culture is too wild-west and "throw on wall, see if stick" style. As much as geniuses are really good at solving problems plaguing modern society, they are really bad at focussing. They need leaders that understand them, like John Lasseter at Pixar. Alternatively, they need equally-genius benevolent dictators like Linus Torvalds (Linux, Git) to keep them in check. Failing that, they need supremely smart, pile-driving, and obliquely techie-cum-marketing obsessed leaders like Jobs at Apple. Gates + Ballmer = those things above, but you really need one voice, not two. I think Google is having the same trouble having Sergey and Larry's style squaring almost diametrically against Eric Schmidt's.
- mgrouchy 16y agoIn my mind (if we are having fantasies/visions about what happens at these companies) Steve jobs wouldn't write an email, he would walk down to these guys or get someone else to get them, pull them into a conference room, yell at them, threaten to fire them and maybe break some shit.
- jshen 16y agoriding people isn't the solution, the problem is usually structural. Take any product and there are 5 to 10 teams involved in it's development and they all push their own little pet ideas. Rarely is there ever a single leader with a single vision that is also involved in the day to day development and decision making. Instead the person that should do this does what you suggest, they swing in every once in a while, complain complain complain, then switch focus to some other project for a bit, while never taking to time to solve the real problem. well, that's my sad experience from a couple of big companies.
- moultano 16y agoThis is a great reminder (to me) that software UI should be designed around how many pieces of information it needs from the user, not how many things it needs to do.
- philwelch 16y agoI've seen this before, but it's worth a read again. Gates said when this first came out that writing emails like this was pretty much his job. He's not the only one--from the stories you read, it sounds like half of Steve Jobs' job is to be a good critic. Of course, Apple doesn't release much until after Steve Jobs criticizes it.
- mrshoe 16y agoIf Gates had maintained a dictatorial death grip on his company like Steve Jobs has, MS probably could have made some decent products. It's one thing to yell at the people who made this system via email. It's quite another to never allow them to ship it in the first place.
- josefresco 16y agoYou're right and the anonymous commenter on their site said it well: "The Steve Jobs version: "If the MovieMaker download site isn't working by tomorrow at 6 am I will come down there at 6:01 am an choke the living ___ out of all of you.""
- mrshoe 16y agoJobs may well provide more severe threats than Gates, but I still think there's an important distinction between firing/choking/maiming employees and refusing to ship (or canceling) a product.
- zach 16y agoThat's right, and the difference between those kinds of threats is personal confrontation. Some folks will rip apart shoddy work because they don't care if the creators get personally upset about it. They're not looking for a confrontation, but if there is one, they feel justified. Other people are bothered that the creators are not personally upset about how shoddy the work is and make quite sure that they are. It's a subtle but important difference.
- stcredzero 16y agoOther people are bothered that the creators are not personally upset about how shoddy the work is and make quite sure that they are. There's also a subtle difference between the 1st part of this sentence alone and the entire sentence.
- 16y ago
- muhfuhkuh 16y agoSeriously though, is all of this fixed in Windows 7, or are people just hyping that up because it sucks alot less than any previous Windows iterations? I don't think I've _ever_ seen a process that convoluted, and I've been using Linux OSes since _before_ the advent of dependency-resolvers like yum and apt (i.e, the bad old days of "RPM hell").
- oihuyjfrgtdfghj 16y agoYes it's all fixed in Win7 if you just want to roll over and let it force you to use IE and Bing and Hotmail for everything. As soon as you try not to use IE suddenly you can't do anything
- sandipagr 16y agoOnly time I ever used IE was to download Firefox when I first installed windows 7. So, I have no idea what you are talking about. My experiences haS been great.
- oihuyjfrgtdfghj 16y agoTry using Outlook web access, or windows genuine advantage or MSDN download in firefox
- shrikant 16y agoSo your grouse is ActiveX doesn't work in Firefox? Why not also complain that vendor specific -moz and -webkit prefixes don't work in IE? FWIW, Outlook Web Access works perfectly well (in "light mode") in Chrome and Firefox, and I can download from MSDN just fine.
- deleted 16y ago[deleted]
- RossM 16y agoOWA degrades to what I deem a much cleaner client than the version you get if you use IE. The OWA you get in IE7+ uses ActiveX or some sort of Windows-specific JavaScript trickery which is why they restrict it's access to a browser they know will be used on Windows. I don't really know what WGA is but have seen logos for it in the computer info dialog. I regularly download things from MSDNAA in Chrome, haven't tried the full MSDN portal.
- Hexstream 16y ago"So they told me that using the download page to download something was not something they anticipated."
- emehrkay 16y agoGolden. As is this line They told me to go to the main page search button and type movie maker (not moviemaker!). It's funny how far we've come, with today's out of the box search tools this wouldnt be a problem
- sdh 16y agoMy name is Bill and Windows was my idea.
- hughw 16y agoMy name is Steve and Windows was my idea.
- White_N_Nerdy 16y agoMy name is Douglas Engelbart and Windows was my idea before Alan Kay, Bill Gates _or_ Steve Jobs.
- cpr 16y agoNot really. Englebart pioneered the mouse & a semi-GUI interface in NLS, but it didn't involve multiple windows.
- benbeltran 16y agoThis made me think a bit about Bill Gates and Microsoft and Everything. People really hate on Bill Gates because of Microsoft and their products, but after seeing this email you get to see that he's as angry as any other user, and even more because he knows all of this will fall back to him. His email portrays not only anger, but some kind of impotence. It's impressive how big companies lose touch with what they're doing. Most software I use lately comes from small companies, they have this dedication and attention to detail that only comes from when you're directly involved with your product. Business is a weird world.
- djacobs 16y agoI remember reading this when it first came out, at a time when I was still on Windows. I remember thinking, "Finally! Microsoft products are bound to improve after a letter like that from Gates." Two years later, nothing about XP had changed, and I moved to OS X, just in time to avoid Vista... So, while the letter is, itself, excellent, I'm not sure how much it did to help out Windows in the long run. (Maybe Windows 7 represents a change.)
- Seth_Kriticos 16y agoOk, this is kind of old shoe, but let's discuss the Windows usability a bit. I have to endure some amount of XP and 7 on a regular basis, so I have some understanding on how to work with them (well, mostly how to set up or correct things). Those that say that Windows 7 is so much better.. well, in some sense. I admittedly has better optics. And it crashes less. Administrative tasks got more tiresome though, compared to XP you have to wade through more windows to get to a specific configuration point. That gets very irksome if you want to perform some configuration for a dozen PC's. (Enough to make it very repetitive, too little that automation would make much sense, especially considering the abysmal automation tools Windows comes with coughshellcough). Other critical points are software management systems (lack of) and general disability in the usability sector. Granted, learning to cope with a Linux system is somewhat more challenging, but once you are into it, it's really much less bother to do things, no matter the scale. Microsoft still has a long way to go just to reach the current status. Maybe they will manage, as they seem to be very apt at keeping the stranglehold on the market. And I will keep avoiding them as much as I can.
- WalterGR 16y agoEnough to make it very repetitive, too little that automation would make much sense, especially considering the abysmal automation tools Windows comes with cough shell cough Hmm... I've been thinking about switching to Powershell. What do you find abysmal about it?
- Seth_Kriticos 16y agoYou are kidding, right? Powershell just does not conform to the original UNIX sh standards, which is why even console wizards will avoid it. Same reason why tcsh and ksh didn't get traction, and they even have merit to them. Who is the target audience? UNIX command line people certainly aren't. Then who, people that managed to learn VB Scripting host? That's just not how things work.
- WalterGR 16y agoYou are kidding, right? No. Who is the target audience? People who want to utilize its access to hundreds of administration tasks across most (all?) of Microsoft's server products, to automate administration tasks. EDIT to add: Same reason why tcsh and ksh didn't get traction, and they even have merit to them. I can't tell: is the implication here that Powershell doesn't have merit? I'm trying to understand.
- seamlessvision 16y agoThis e-mail has been going around for years now. It's old news.
- ajg1977 16y agoAlthough amusing, this is an example of poor management IMO. It comes across as the sort of email you would write while criticizing/mocking a competitors product that you were powerless to change. There's no demand for improvement, or accountability for making that happen. No wondering if this small experience is indicative of other problems. He's just "disappointed".
- mtr 16y agoFor me it's more an example of poor management from the fact that he allowed development to become so fragmented that the end result was a convoluted mess. I know if the the richest man in the world said he was disappointed with something I had, the implications of not fixing the problem would be very clear. :)
- julnepht 16y agoMy biggest takeway from this email is to write short paragraph s when writing a long email. Seems pretty simple but I had never thought about this. Write 2-3 lines per paragraph.
- blhack 16y agoThe part about him filling in the form on microsoft.com and having it tell him that what he input was invalid is particularly hilarious.
- jedberg 16y agoI think by far the most telling part of this was this quote: "Then it told me to reboot my machine. Why should I do that? I reboot every night -- why should I reboot at that time?" No wonder he has no idea how horrible Windows is. He resets it every day.
- deleted 16y ago[deleted]
- famousactress 16y agoSo Windows 7 was his idea! Mystery solved.
- paolomaffei 16y agoThe first time I read it I was in disbelief. I actually checked if the mail was fake or true, turns out it's true. The second time I read it I actually laughed.
- jkantro 16y agoAfter recently working with Microsoft on a project for 8 months all I can say is the way their product team offices are set up is quite bad. The user experience designers and visual designers are sitting hallways down from the developers and program managers. This is not how it should be. All stakeholders in the application design process should be near each other. Open work spaces do wonders for communication and collaboration, which in turn affects product design.
- a1g 16y agothrow windows out the window, use linux, problem solved..play guitar hero with all the spare time...
- c00p3r 16y agoMost of the time you don't need some authority person's opinion to realize that something is a total mess. Your own experience is enough. That is what this email is all about - users will create their own opinion very quickly. The another example is Java development. Everyone who run Maven2 build process (say to build clojure-contrib) will be amazed by a tons of a strange and useless messages, repeated downloads of what seems the same files (but, different minor version numbers) to unknown location. That process will took something like 10 minutes on 3G connection, while you have absolutely no idea what's going on (OK, I can figure out that it is a process of a recursive downloading and building dependencies, and because people don't care about migration to the latest stable versions, it will download half of internet.) This alone tells me what is really happening in a Java world better than all Sun's brainwashing altogether. ^_^ btw, sudo apt-get install maven2 downloaded another 70Mb of shit (in case JDK is already installed). 70Mb for a apt+make replacement? Compressed Linux kernel sources are less in size.
- bond 16y ago"So they told me that using the download page to download something was not something they anticipated." WTH???!!
- lelele 16y agoGuys, has uncle Bill mellowed with age! In the past meeting with him about MS products meant keeping a f* score: http://www.joelonsoftware.com/items/2006/06/16.html http://www.joelonsoftware.com/items/2006/06/16.html Now, he's just "quite disappointed".