I regret it every time. Nearly without exception, updating any program or app I use results in problems.
A Windows update once caused my desktop computer to cease making any sound. I now create a system restore point before any updates, and don’t allow the system to update automatically. I wait several weeks to find out if there are bugs.
-Updating has screwed up various functions in Adobe and MS Word that I liked.
Totally done with updating Firefox. Every fucking update makes some minor, unneeded change to the interface layout that I hate and can’t change. Now I’m just leaving it, and relying on several extensions for security.
The podcast app for iPad has updated and done the same thing as Firefox, making unnecessary changes to things I fucking LIKED!!! And it still doesn’t seem to understand that when I delete a podcast, I want it to stay fucking deleted!
-The latest is the Mercury browser. Loved, loved, loved it until the update yesterday. Now it’s fucking useless. Their “improvements” caused multiple problems with text sizing and bookmarks. No way that I can see to revert to the earlier version (please advise if this isn’t so), which I’m guessing is Apple’s fault since we apparently aren’t meant to have much control over our devices.
Can’t believe I’m channeling William F. Buckley, but I really want to stand athwart the progress of software and shout, “STOP!!!”
When I set up a computer, I do a lot of fiddling with it to get it to run everything I want the way I want it to, and then I don’t touch it. I turned Windows updates off and turn off all of the software updates that I can. With some programs I’ve had to go and find the executable that runs periodically to check for updates and I’ve renamed that so that it couldn’t run, because otherwise the software would keep nagging me to update and wouldn’t give me an option to shut it off.
In terms of computer uptime and downtime, windows updates have been far more destructive to me over the years than viruses.
If you’re running Office 2013, the recent bollix is well-attested. I got hit and needed to reinstall, and a mate says Microsoft’s reseller forums are alive with complaints.
I don’t really understand what you’re saying, but I get the gist is that Office 2013 is another step down?
Hey, it’s been seven years now–can I bitch about the shittyness of the ribbon interface without being told I just need to give it a chance?
(And a random thankyou to BigT for his thread on putting Firefox back to normal after a recent update-for-update’s sake.)
They do.
But, they don’t all call each other and agree to a particular release date. If you have 50 apps, and each one gets an update twice a year, you’ll get two updates/week on average.
Sorry, but that won’t work. Browser extensions generally can’t fix things like buffer overruns, use-after-free problems, privilege escalations, and other security issues in the browser itself. You need to continue to apply the official security updates if you want to fix these problems (and yes, you do want to fix these problems).
If you’re annoyed at the UI changes which tend to be applied along with the security fixes, then perhaps you should consider switching to SeaMonkey. SeaMonkey is the continuation of the Mozilla Application Suite, the internet suite which Firefox was spun off from. The SeaMonkey browser is pretty much identical in terms of capability to Firefox, and the plugins and extensions are almost always compatible, but the interface is much more stable—that is, the developers don’t have some strange need to tinker with it and dumb it down at every release.
I sent many an angry e-mail to ITunes. At one time, I foolishly though the updates were to make improvements to safety, speeds, etc
Then ITunes did an update that changed the enter app. The interface, the functionally…all changed…FOR THE WORSE. Creating playlists, once easy, is not a chore…things I used to be able to do with a single click…GONE.
Oh man, the playlists in iTunes. Why, oh why, can I not create a playlist from the artist view? Why do I have to switch to playlist creation mode, with a cover-view-like interface? Why can I switch back to regular view and add songs to the playlists with a right-click, but I have to leave that view (and my place) to make changes?
Another complaint: why can’t I make MP3s from the playlist interface? If I’m making an MP3 CD, I have to convert each individual song, add it to the playlist, burn the CD, then hunt down and delete those MP3s. It used to be able to do it on-the-fly when burning the CD, now it just throws up an error message.
Question for you: what about the ribbon do you dislike?
Context of the question:
1 - I am not one of those morons that thinks “change is always good and users are just lazy” - I create software and take great pains to make damn sure that when a user needs to learn something new it’s because it’s a net gain, not “just different”. User’s are lazy (myself included) but for a damn good reason (because we’re busy doing work), therefore change must be carefully calculated.
2 - I’m still adjusting to the ribbon and I have to google to figure out where some things are. I like the idea behind the ribbon from an organization standpoint, so I can’t quite understand why I have to click around so much, not find something and then google for it. I’m wondering if someone has spotted what “the” issue is.
My take is that the ribbon gives you, say, a 20% boost in putting features in your face, when what you really need is a non-sucky help system that has sufficient synonyms for common and uncommon problems. We know help systems can be improved because google is superior to Office’s help button and google is a generalist facility.
Another approach might involve the ability to toggle interfaces. That would permit some redundancy in attempting to do a task.
All of the above are just an hypothesis. Even today, error codes are opaque: the field is still young.
I’m a keyboard person. From Windows 3.1 thru Office 2003, all of the shortcut keys remained the same, & each window was available at the top, with all of the features in it contained w/in a dropdown.
With the stoopit ribbon, they changed shortcut keys, & only made functions available in that ribbon. Typical Microsquash. Being hung, drawn & quartered, while simultaneously being hit with a high-pressure firehose shooting acid is far too nice for the bastard who thought up/approved that change!
There’s a really interesting talk given by Microsoft at their MIX08 conference called The Story of the Ribbon. It discusses and shows some of the alternatives to the ribbon (meaning it could have been worse). The video is over an hour long, but the PowerPoint slides are also there for downloading. At least it makes it look like Microsoft tried doing some research on this before forcing it on everyone.