I think articles like these miss the point that Microsoft's stuff is not intended to be designed in a predictable way. Their goal, above all else, is to protec

I think articles like these miss the point that Microsoft's stuff is not intended to be designed in a predictable way. Their goal, above all else, is to protect their monopoly. Making things convoluted, unpredictable, and undocumented is just one way of doing that. Silently failing, and non-specific error messages are another.