Why Do People Detest Microsoft?

[spectrum]

So, Evil Captor, you think Microsoft should refrain from adding value to its OS just so that it can let companies make a business by selling additional functions to you? Microsoft, by including a good internet browser for free with their OS, made the OS a better value, and made things better for consumers.

So if Microsoft were to bundle – I mean, integrate – Office, Encarta and Money into Windows, you’d be just fine with that? And you’d say that Corel, Britannica and Quicken had no right to complain? Because Microsoft was just making the OS a “better value?” Because taken to length, that’s what your statement here says.

Web browsers are a bit different, I’d agree – every modern OS should have a high-quality, default web browser. But philosophically, your position could be taken to an absurd extreme that lets Microsoft do whatever the hell it wants, so long as it claims its just trying to “improve Windows.”

Apple is a HECK of a lot more anticompetitive than Microsoft. No one notices it because Apple is just a much smaller player in the computer industry. They force you to buy their hardware to use their OS, and take measures to restrict what OS you can put on their hardware. Not exactly the defenders of consumer choice.

Alereon, Apple isn’t in the same business as Microsoft or Dell. They’re niether a hardware company nor a software company. They’re a systems company. They sell complete, integrated systems. That’s not anti-competitive, it’s a different business model. It’s like that of Sun or SGI or NeXT. Wait, Apple is NeXT. Or NeXT is Apple. At this point, its hard to figure who bought out who.

And as for restricting OS operation, that’s only the case when new hardware comes out that previous OSes don’t have the infrastructure to support. The reason OS 9 doesn’t boot* the newest Macs is because the underlying hardware is changing. Mac OS 9 has no support for Bluetooth or FireWire 800, etc. And to expect Apple to add that support to an obsolete OS is absurd. Until the transition to OS X, which necessarily breaks some backwards compatibility, since it’s a whole new system, Apple’s OSes routinely reached farther back than Windows. Could you run Windows 95 on a 1986-circa PC? You could run the contemporeous Mac OS, System 7.5, on a Mac Plus from January 1986, if you had an external hard disk and enough RAM. The only reason Apple stopped supporting it’s mid-1980s systems is because they wanted System 7.6 to be fully 32-bit clean. A laudable goal.

The only reason Mac OSes won’t run on certain older hardware is technological. The only reason older Mac OSes won’t run on more modern hardware is technological. And how is that anti-competitive anyway? Do you expect Apple to keep updating its obsolete systems to work on hardware not designed for them? Again, Apple is a systems company – their hardware is designed to work with certain versions of their operating software, and vice versa. That’s one of the reasons Apple provides such a smoother interface and experience than almost any Windows box. They tried to change their business model in the mid-1990s, and it was a disaster. It almost killed the company.

Apple also embraces open source as much, if not more, than any other major computer maker on the market. And they don’t just take from open source, either. They return. Darwin, the core of Mac OS X, is freely available, in both binary and source formats. You can take it and install it on an Intel computer if you like. You won’t have the Aqua interface or the high-level OS X technologies that are linked into Apple’s UI and hardware, but you can hardly expect them to give away their crown jewels like that.

Apple’s web browser, Safari, is based on KHTML, and Apple has been active in returning its improvements to the engine to the KHTML project. Darwin engineers routinely return code the FreeBSD project. QuickTime server is a freely available project from Apple, and I believe the source to it is available as well.

Where is Microsoft in the open source movement? They’re trying to kill it, with such tricks as DRM systems that would refuse to validate open software for “security” reasons – which is a laugh, since the most security-problem prone platform out there is Microsoft’s.

And there’s nothing in Apple’s history as detestable as the old Microsoft mantra of “DOS isn’t done until Lotus won’t run.”

• • You can actually get OS 9 to boot the latest Power Macs. But nothing works right, because the OS doesn’t understand the new hardware configurations. And the iBooks, which have been upgraded, but not changed – no Bluetooth or FireWire 800, etc – still boot OS 9 just fine, even the ones released last week.

[China_Guy]

jesus. you’d think people would remember back when you had to buy a spell checker seperately. Microsoft grew dominant because they were the first to mass market a suite that worked. End of story. Any user of Lotus 1-2-3 versus Excel picked Excel back in 90-92 timeframe, and that got business to moved to win95 and office.

I liked Mac’s a lot better in the late 80’s and early 90’s, but never wanted to pay the outrageously premium it would have cost for all the hardware and software.

If you look at the global IT spend, Microsoft makes peanuts compared with IBM.

[Alereon]

*Originally posted by spectrum *
Web browsers are a bit different, I’d agree – every modern OS should have a high-quality, default web browser. But philosophically, your position could be taken to an absurd extreme that lets Microsoft do whatever the hell it wants, so long as it claims its just trying to "improve Windows."

While the argument can be taken to extremes, it can go the other way too. Should Microsoft be forced to remove Notepad from Windows in order to foster competition in the text editor marketplace? I consider a web browser such an essential component that integrating it into the system is a good idea.

The issue with Apple is not that they eschew backwards compatibility. This is actually a good thing, if Microsoft were to put a solid minimum requirement of a Pentium III or Athlon CPU, they could optimize Windows and squeeze some more performance out of it. The issue is that Apple may prevent you from installing alternative OS, such as Linux. There have been stories for awhile that Apple is planning to implement a BIOS lock that prevents the system from booting anything but an official Apple OS. If you’ll recall, back in the days of the original iMac, Apple released a BIOS that disabled RAM that was not officially purchased from Apple. They quickly removed the brand-checking after a public outcry, but that set a dangerous precedent for their willingness to lock-in users.

AudreyK: Yeah, I was thinking of that. They started licensing clones, then cancelled the project, screwed the vendors, and went back to the previous Standard Operating Procedure.

[Tuckerfan]

The reason I dislike Microsoft, other than the reasons mentioned, is that a good deal of their software takes up space simply by “looking pretty.” A GUI is a helluva lot easier to use than a command prompt, but, really, I don’t need something in 37,000 eye catching colors splattered all over my screen. I also hate the defaults MS uses and it’s a royal PITA to configure everything so that Winblows works the way I want it to. There’s only a handful of programs that I use which are “Windows only” programs and as soon as a Linux version of the programs comes out, or I get the money for another PC, I fully intend to switch to Linux.

[Glory]

Alereon

The Microsoft Windows Product Activation Technical Marketing Bulletin states that users are allowed four (4) activations per calender year. If you exceed this number, you are required to contact Microsoft by phone and plead your case. Now, I am willing to agree that Microsoft doesn’t want to inconvenience legitimate purchasers. However, what about legitimate users that follow atypical usage patterns, and thus require frequent reactivation? You’re telling me that Microsoft is simply going to take their word for the fact that they are using the software legitimately

The short answer is yes. I’ve seen the tool, I know what the CSRs do to activate the product, I know the questions they ask the customer, the answer is yes. Now if there is ABUSE, like 100s of activations of the same PID in one day, it might be escalated to the anti piracy group, but rejections for individuals who state they are using the product legitimately are not handled at the CSR level. I mean, there’s a difference between “atypical usage patterns” and blatant abuse.

Please show me the link where it states users are allowed 4 activations per calendar year. I think you are getting two things slightly confused. In order to make it easy for individuals to upgrade their pcs, there’s actually a bit of calendar involved. If you’ve made big enough changes that would normally require an activation, but enough time has passed (and I don’t know specifically what the time is), you won’t even have to call a CSR. This helps out your regular customer who buys new computer hardware throughout the year, that customer is never bothered with activation.

AudreyK

Back when we did the original training in March of 2001, there were rules like that in place. Now, 2 years later, based on customer feedback and concerns (mainly about issues with upgrading computers) those “rules” are gone. It was a BIG DEAL that customers were so unhappy with activation, Microsoft made changes to the program to ensure that legitimate customers would not be unduely inconvenienced. I know this is true: I read memos, I sat in on meetings, I helped send out update training.

If you call and ask a CSR that same question today, the correct scripted answer is: You will not have to purchase additional product as long as you are using the product legitimately. (or something like that, I’m not at work and don’t have the scripting in front of me)

So yes, at one time when we did the original activation training, there were some numbers involved. That is no longer true.

[spectrum]

*Originally posted by Alereon *
**While the argument can be taken to extremes, it can go the other way too. Should Microsoft be forced to remove Notepad from Windows in order to foster competition in the text editor marketplace? I consider a web browser such an essential component that integrating it into the system is a good idea.

**

A web browser is essential, but the style of integration Microsoft foisted on you was not done because of its technological benefits, but instead as a way to skirt the consent decree so that Microsoft could include a web browser without illegally bundling.

I would have let Microsoft bundle the browser without them doing this whole “integrated into Explorer” dance because it’s that importat for the system to have a native browser. Though back in the days of Netscape 2 and Netscape 3, the public would have been better-served had Microsoft bundled Netscape instead of their own, anemic Internet Explorer.

The issue is that Apple may prevent you from installing alternative OS, such as Linux.

May? What a load of nonsense. Apple has never done this, nor ever shown any interest in doing this. In fact, their BIOS, which contains OpenFirmware, is designed specifically to facilitate the use of alternative OSes.

I find it funny that you would accuse Apple of this, when Microsoft goes out of its way to make sure that every reinstallation of Windows nukes your boot data, so that if you have Linux installed, even if Windows is your default OS, the reinstall of Windows will make it impossible to boot Linux.

There have been stories for awhile that Apple is planning to implement a BIOS lock that prevents the system from booting anything but an official Apple OS.

There have been stories that Microsoft plans to use the evil, evil Palladium hardware/software combo to prevent you from opening Office-generated documents in other productivity programs. I’d consider both rumors about as likely: not.

If you’ll recall, back in the days of the original iMac, Apple released a BIOS that disabled RAM that was not officially purchased from Apple.

I would have to see a cite for this in order to believe it. Apple from time to time gets in trouble because newer OSes will disable some user-installed RAM, but it has nothing to do with who it was purchased from.

It has everything to do with the parity and check tests that the OS runs at the start – more recent Mac OSes are very demanding in terms of the quality of RAM they will allow. The cheapo RAM you buy at Fry’s will not work in Mac OS X. However, I have added RAM to every one of my Macs, and I have never purchased a single stick of it from Apple (I buy direct from Crucial, usually - the folks who supply Apple), and have never had it not work or be turned off.

They quickly removed the brand-checking after a public outcry, but that set a dangerous precedent for their willingness to lock-in users.

If you want to talk about hardware that locks in users, consider WinModems and the like. Or the way that Hewlett Packard is suing anyone who tries to make 3rd party ink tanks for their latest printers.

Apple is far from perfect – for instance, i wish they’d let people build plug-ins or extensions to iDVD to let it be used with non-Apple supplied DVD-R drives* – but in terms of user hostility, they are very, very far from the top of the list.

• • Actually, you can. You just have to install the exact style and make of drive that Apple uses, and the software won’t be able to tell the difference, FWII.

[spectrum]

No matter how many times they “let” you reactivate, authorization is a customer-hostile system that is a pain in the rear to deal with. No one should have to call Microsoft and plead for mercy, or even request it casually, in order to re-install the operating system on their computer, no matter how many hardware changes they have made. Nor should they be barred from moving their Windows software from a computer they’re no longer using to, say, a computer they just built.

Treating all your customers like potential pirates is simply wrong. Not offering a “family pack” style discout for multiple-license domestic purchases, at the very least, if Microsoft insists on this activation crap, is downright customer hostile. I’d hate to be in a three-computer Windows family, if they’re the kinda folks who like to keep their operating system on the latest version. Time to send $300 to Uncle Bill…

[Evil_Captor]

*Originally posted by spectrum *
**Don’t be so down on the world, Evil. If it get’s too heavy in Microsoftland for you to handle, you can always make The Switch.

We’ll be nice, and promise not to byte. **

I am not down on the world, I’m down on Microsoft.

I own an older but still very nice Mac and an older but still very nice PC. I’m platform-independent, but I’ve also read heavily about this history of technology and also followed the news, and it’s very evident that Microsoft is just fucking evil. No other word for it. They haven’t actually killed anyone to gain a competitive advantage that I know of, but that’s only because they haven’t HAD to.

What is Windows? A blatant ripoff of the MacOS.
What is IE? A blatant ripoff of Netscape.

Microsoft is brilliant at marketing and unscrupulous business practices, but when it comes to software design, they’re just a pack of ripoff artists.

[Evil_Captor]

*Originally posted by Alereon *
So, Evil Captor, you think Microsoft should refrain from adding value to its OS just so that it can let companies make a business by selling additional functions to you? Microsoft, by including a good internet browser for free with their OS, made the OS a better value, and made things better for consumers.

There’s no denying that ripping off Netscape and giving away their inferior version of it free with their OS made things better for consumers. Just as there’s no denying that ripping off the Mac OS and transforming their OS into a GUI was a boon to cosumers … eventually. (I mean, Windows 3.1 is hard to describe as a ‘boon’.)

But if I were to rob a bank and give the money away it would be a boon to consumers, but that wouldn’t make what I was doing right.

Again, Microsoft has exploited their monopoly powers, and will probably continue to do so. The destruction of Netscape, however, isn’t really a valid example. Netscape was making its living off of an oversight on Microsoft’s part, and when Microsoft corrected that oversight with a superior product, Netscape went quietly off into the night.

That oversight being that MicroSoft hadn’t ripped Netscape off yet.

spectrum: Apple is a HECK of a lot more anticompetitive than Microsoft. No one notices it because Apple is just a much smaller player in the computer industry. They force you to buy their hardware to use their OS, and take measures to restrict what OS you can put on their hardware. Not exactly the defenders of consumer choice. **
[/QUOTE]

You’re right, Apple has made a lot of bad decisions in this regard, but if they occupied more than a tiny niche market that might be a problem. But they don’t so it ain’t.

[Glory]

Nor should they be barred from moving their Windows software from a computer they’re no longer using to, say, a computer they just built.

Where do you guys come up with this stuff? No one is barred from transferring software from one pc to another as long as it is uninstalled on the first computer first. Windows XP allows one active installation on one computer at a time. Uninstalling from one computer and reinstalling on another computer is also legitimate use of product. Once again, this customer scenario is well covered in training and the agents are provided questions/scripting to cover this.

It is not allowed in the case of OEM software (ie you buy a computer from a reseller with Windows XP installed) because they have a different EULA. You can transfer the entire computer and operating system to another user.

[AHunter3]

Apple is no Company of Angels, but they do not “force you to buy their hardware to use their OS”.

Any company that is capable of reverse-engineering the Mac ROM (as opposed to swiping it from a Mac) will encounter no legal barriers to releasing a Mac-compatible machine that will boot MacOS 9 (or 8, 7, 6, etc). No one has ever done so. The IBM Personal Computer was cloned only because the design was easier to reverse-engineer, not because IBM gave a license to Compaq or Dell or Gateway and instructed them in how to make the PC.

Actually, any company that wishes to buy old discarded broken Macs and cannibalize them for their ROMs and motherboards is apparently also able to do so without legal barriers. Want a Mac clone?

As for MacOS X compatibles, since IIRC they don’t utilize ROM chips or ROM files, there are probably fewer barriers against clones. Only the hardware would have to be reverse-engineered. Anyone with info to the contrary is welcome to contradict me.

[spectrum]

For a Mac OS X-compatible clone, you would need the ROM since it has the OpenFirmware necessary to boot the OS. Other than that, there’s not a whole lot stopping it. Aside from the fact that they couldn’t actually ship the system with OS X installed - the EULA only legally allows installation on Apple-branded Mac systems. That’s a legal hurdle, though, not a technological one. We’ll see how the iBox folks do. I don’t expect them to ring up too many sales. I don’t think there’s that much demand for such a system out there. Apple’s customers are pretty well served with Apple’s five-product line up. Though I would like to see a new, low-cost iCube, or iSphere, whatever. Basically, the base of the current iMac, minus the display, would be a great little system for those who want more of a choice regarding the display configuration.

[scr4]

*Originally posted by China Guy *
jesus. you’d think people would remember back when you had to buy a spell checker seperately. Microsoft grew dominant because they were the first to mass market a suite that worked. End of story. Any user of Lotus 1-2-3 versus Excel picked Excel back in 90-92 timeframe, and that got business to moved to win95 and office.

First of all, I don’t remember having to buy a spell checker separately, but I didn’t start using computers until 1989 so I’ll take your word for it.

But in the 90-92 timeframe, how much of Excel’s superiority was due to Microsoft’s inside knowledge of the operating system? I call that an unfair advantage.

[Alereon]

spectrum: Cite for Apple BIOS upgrade disabling RAM. It notes in the article that it wasn’t a matter of defective memory modules being disabled, but modules whose SPD identification data didn’t match Apple’s. If it was based on some sort of memory test that disabled the RAM if it found errors, that would be one thing. It wasn’t.

Using software-assisted modems doesn’t lock you into using a Microsoft OS. They’ll run fine on any OS that can provide drivers for them. See Linmodems.org for information and drivers about how to use winmodems in Linux. And it was Lexmark that was blocking the installation of off-brand toner cartridges that had copied its firmware.

[spectrum]

Sorry. Alereon, that article supports me, not you. You claimed Apple as disabling non-Apple RAM. What that article says is what I was asserting – that the BIOS (and later OS X updates) was picky about the quality of RAM. Apple has certain specs for “acceptable” RAM, and won’t recognize the cheapo $20 DIMMs. But that doesn’t mean you have to buy your RAM from Apple. Any decent, high-end to mid-level RAM will work jsut fine in Macs.

[yosemite]

Alereon: I see nothing in that link you provided that indicates that Apple was trying to deliberately lock out any RAM that wasn’t Apple RAM. I mean, that was the obvious result for some people, but there is no evidence that this was their sole purpose.

Macworld article excerpt:

After a week of user complaints, Apple commented on the firmware update. The company said that the update checks out users’ RAM to make sure it meets Apple’s specifications. “This check was added to help alleviate random crashes and stability issues,” an Apple spokeswoman said. “The new memory test disables memory DIMMs that are found to be out of specification and DIMMs that cannot be determined to be compatible.”…

In other words, if your RAM doesn’t meet Apple’s specs–even if it worked without a hitch before–the firmware update will disable it. Apple added that it would be up to users and vendors to fix the problem.

Well, that sucks, and Apple does sometimes do things that suck. It might have been that Apple wanted to be super-picky about the quality of RAM (so maybe they’d only accept more expensive high-end RAM, not just Apple RAM). As spectrum said, he always uses Crucial RAM, (doesn’t buy it directly from Apple) and has so far had no problems. I bought my iMac from ClubMac (in 2001) and they added 3rd party RAM for me. They assured me that it passed all Apple Specs, because I was concerned about the very problem described in that cite. No problems ClubMac’s RAM. If Apple’s firmware disabled all RAM that wasn’t from Apple, that might be one thing, but I don’t know if that’s the case or not. I am guessing not.

Regarding the OP: Yes, Microsoft is evil. No, I won’t stop buying products from them. I like Office for Macintosh. I have a new PC, and I like Windows XP well enough.

I am concerned about my PC, though, and I have a question for Glory: I bought an OEM disk of XP Pro off of eBay (I bought some bit of hardware with it, so it’s all fair and square with MS, I am told). My PC is kinda crappy, so I want to upgrade it eventually, so it’s almost like a new PC. I want a new motherboard and case, for starters. Glory, if I change my motherboard, maybe get a new CPU (maybe keep the one I have), but keep the HDD, CD-ROM and CD-RW, and add several other cards (new video card, new sound card), I am assuming that my OEM version of Windows XP will still activate? I sure hope so.

[Glory]

yosemitebabe, wow, that’s getting a little beyond my league. The last thing I heard (two years ago) was that OEM software has to come with the pc. I remember there was a company in Asia that was selling an OEM copy of Windows XP with a mouse (or something like that) and they were asked to stop. Of course, that was two years ago, and a lot can change in the activation world.

Let me try to understand what you’ve asked. You installed an OEM copy of Windows XP on your computer (I’m guessing it was still sealed, so it hadn’t been installed on any other computer?) You want to make changes to THIS computer? As far as I know, the fact that its OEM in this situation shouldn’t make a difference, it’s still one copy of the software actively installed on the same computer. You can make a bazillion changes, and it’s still the same software on the same computer. I know it is against the EULA to transfer OEM software to another computer (although you can transfer the entire pc + software to another user), but you aren’t doing that.

As long as it’s one active installation on one computer, you are within the terms of your EULA and it’s legitimate product. The OEM part where you purchased the software with a bit of hardware is a bit tricky, I can ask around some of the activation experts, if you want.

[yosemite]

Glory: It’s very common to buy OEM software on eBay with “some hardware” (and they use that term very loosely). I bought my PC new from a vendor on eBay. I could’ve bought XP from them too (had them install it) but they only offered XP Home, and I wanted Pro. So, I looked on eBay and found a seller (who had TONS of feedback, well established, “PowerSelller”, the whole nine yards) and bought XP Pro from them. The “hardware” I got was some itty-bitty little cable thingie. It’s adorable. I have no idea what it does! And yes, the copy of XP Pro I got was sealed and new. Installed wonderfully on my PC; no problems at all.

I am guessing from what you’re saying that I can do umpteen upgrades to this computer and it’ll still run my OEM copy of XP Pro. Whew! Good. Thanks for reassuring me. I didn’t want to buy another version of XP. I would just sell the PC as-is, and buy a new PC if that was the case. (And that would suck.)

If you want to ask some activation experts about this eBay OEM thing, so all of us can be enlighted on this issue, that would be great, and I am sure, very appreciated by all of us here! Thanks so much.

[GusNSpot]

99.9% of the folks in this thread fussing back and forth are geeks and nerds and gurus and computer whiz’s compared to 99.8% of the computer using population of the world. I have yet to see anyone of the so called ‘others’ have a system that will do what Windows does at the same price. You all can do all you want but the AVERAGE Joe can not. If we Joe’s want printers, scanners, word processors, games, movies, music, web browsing and all that, we have to get it cheap and EASY. …PLUG and Play… Microsoft does that. For a few dollars more Mac does that. NO BODY else does that. All the OTHER systems can NOT be built by the average Joe.
No big company is without fault. Sure not M$. So what do you suggest? Nothing here has been noted that can be done by the average computer user. The average person can not and will not build their own computer. They don’t want to nor can they afford to stay on the tip of the computer development arrow. I hate the way it is now and it will get worse. If the industry does not come up with something, the market will change dramatically and the government will be come involved in a hands on way and then we all will be really in trouble.

Come up with a SOLUTION…

You can’t because it ain’t that easy.

Bust up M$? So, then what? Government control. Suck ups like Haliburton? Oh yeah, that’s the ticket…

What is better is what works. Unfortunately, that is also complicated by market driven forces. You know, MONEY…

Are computers a “right” in your opinion? Sure sounds like it…

Come on, come up with some solutions.

[Evil_Captor]

Here’s a solution:

Used Macs are really cheap. You can do some SERIOUS graphics on a 300 Mhz Mac running Photoshop 5, in a quite snappy manner. Macs are a LOT simpler to use than Wintel boxes, used ones are cheap. Got it? Good!

As for the Windows XP world, it’s just like Glory says: Do whatever Microsoft says and no one gets hurt.