Why I Hate Microsoft Today

My all-time favorite Microsoft joke goes something like this: Two men are flying in a helicopter in dense fog in the Pacific Northwest. They’re having electrical problems with the chopper, navigation’s shot, and they’re running out of fuel, but they know that if they ditch, they’ll probably die. Suddenly, there’s a break in the clouds, and they see a building in front of them. The co-pilot sees someone in a window and scrawls a message on a piece of paper: “Where are we?” The guy in the window frowns, scribbles, and holds up an answer: “You’re in a helicopter.” “Aha!” the pilot says. He banks a sharp left and lands them safely at a local airfield. “How did you do that?” the co-pilot asks. “Simple,” the pilot replies. “You asked a question, and you got an answer that was logical, correct, and absolutely no help whatsoever. It had to be the Microsoft headquarters.”

That’s pretty much my deal today. I have, though a circuitous process, ended up with two reconditioned Macs, both of which have MS Word installed. I have never used Word at home, even though they force it on us at school. It’s bloated and rude (if I wanted you to do my formatting for me, why would I spend the time to set it up myself??). But now I have Word, so whatever. Turns out they don’t have the exact same version of Word, though. The iMac will translate my files from school. The laptop doesn’t. Turns out I need a service release to make the laptop’s version of Word work right.

So I blithely go to the Microsoft website to download the service release. Can’t find it. All the page links are dead. Microsoft just released Word for Mac 2008, so they deep-sixed all the support for my version of Word. It’s old, but I guess their corporate policy is “make ’em buy a new one!” Doesn’t matter whether I can actually *run* the new one on my computer, I don’t have much of a choice. It’s find a copy on eBay, or tough you-know-what.

It’s days like this that make me proud I’ve never spent my own money on a Microsoft product. Leeches. But if I want to read my files, I’ll have to hold my nose and do it. Grr. Are you listening, Bill Gates?