Okay… another Windows 10 rant. Be warned!
So I was upgrading a laptop to Windows 10. (Yes, there are plenty of machines out there running Windows 7; many folks who are still not anxious to embrace the Beast.) Unfortunately, it was Windows 7 Home not Pro, so it upgraded to Windows 10 Home.
Yuck.
The problem with Home is that it requires an online account, no option for a local account, even though that version of windows will support one. The windows installer for Home version does not support that.(1) Ok, so what I usually do is create a new Microsoft account just long enough to finish the install, then create a local administrator account and erase the account I was forced to create. Being a temporary account I tried to created a “blahblah@….” account only to discover that name was taken. So I went “blahblah1” and it was taken. “BlahBlah100” was taken. “noaccount” was taken. “Idontwantone” was taken. Even “noneoyobiz” was taken (I was feeling impinged upon and was thinking it’s really None o’ yo’ biz!) Etc. I finally found a random combination that was not already in use.(2) But…
One can certainly make the argument here — not conclusively, but convincingly — that I am by no means the only person who creates temporary accounts during installation just to finish the installation and then never again uses that account. Has no one at Microsoft not noticed what must be 10’s or 100’s of thousands or even more junk accounts that get created this way? Is that not important feedback that their design is in need of review?
Has Microsoft also not noticed that they serve the customer, not the NSA(3) or current fads in selling computer time, or 21st century marketing, or the stock holders? They serve the customer. The NSA can fend for itself, and as for trends in marketing, Microsoft created some of those, they can create new ones just as easily — honorable ones, say.
As for the Stock Holders, if you are serving the stock holders first, then you are actually failing them. You serve your customers first, and stay focused on the best possible product(s), so that your customers are the happiest, so that your products are the most successful, etc. Then your stock goes up as a side-effect, and they’ve gone up honestly. Meaning your earned it. Unlike Microsoft’s stock values the last few years; dishonest to the consumer and the stock holder both. Stock value goes up on appearance of success rather than on true success. Worlds of difference, and in the long run only true success can succeed.
However, one has to remember that even Elon Musk has been working to buy back all the public stock he released, because once a company goes public (i.e., stock) its options become unbelievably limited, even under threat of legal punishment for failure to “serve the stock holder.” Silliness. Still, that didn’t stop Bill Gates or Steve Jobs from focusing on the technology, not on the stock holders, and they made a lot of millionaires by doing so.
Anyway… my recommendation to anyone buying a Windows laptop: don’t settle for Windows Home. Get Windows Pro. Can’t find a laptop with Windows Pro? Then you can get an upgrade license over the internet for anything from $5 to $100 (don’t shop Microsoft store first; ask your favorite search engine first). Then you go to activation settings on your computer, change the activation key to the new key, and your computer will magically do its thing. When the dust settles, you are on Windows Pro and don’t have such invasive and silly limitations as being required to keep your stuff where other persons unknown can rummage through it (cloud drive, online accounts, etc, etc). Many other annoyances and limitations will have been lifted too, including some outright bugs.
Alright… many will disagree with parts of this diatribe, but… the central point remains: Windows 10 Home is a mighty irritating version of Windows. Irritation does not serve the customer. To be fair, it’s possible that MSFT has no idea how many, many complaints I and other computer teachers / techs / gurus get to listen to about how frustrating computers (meaning Windows — Mac doesn’t seem to stir the same feelings of irritation and fear) are. Or the number of people who think it’s that they are “too stupid” to use a computer. This is an incredibly unfair thing to grind into a customer(4).
The computer industry’s job over these last decades was to train the consumer in the art and joy of using a computer, not in the increasing obscurity of instructions that are barely legible, and/or possessed of multiple meanings, or that assume one already knows how to use a computer like a race car driver knows how to take himself to the grocery store.
Ah me… please excuse this mostly-rant posting. I get frustrated when I think of the potential personal computers had, and how that has been nearly completely lost in the dust of a hack-and-scam mentality that has replaced the idealism the computer industry was founded on.
Thanks for listening, if you got this far.
Click here for your free Ginsu Knives now, but first your have to create an account.
Oh, never mind…
(1) Any lawyers out there bored enough to look into whether that sort of obvious manipulation of the customer for personal gain is legal? An online account is nothing but another way to extort… er… um… get more money from the customer. Further, it’s less secure; the fact of an online account means my login info for the computer is now stored not only where ever I put it, but also no-one-really-knows-where on the internet, perhaps in multiple places. I have not noticed a “potential security vulnerability” alert when I create an online account; rather the opposite, in fact, as Windows Defender (for instance) keeps up the ludicrous pretense that a MSFT online account helps to keep me more secure. Cow Fritters… (To be fair, what it does is allow me to restore from back up certain things, if I further make use of the online account in certain ways that often end up costing more money. There are advantages to an online MSFT account, but that should NEVER be the same as the login for the computer. Never. Instant security violation.)
(2) Then they further weaken the fantasy of security by requiring a PIN. I just gave them a password, not I must also enter a 4 – 6 digit PIN? Really? A 4 digit PIN means I — as a nefarious computer thief — need only guess 1000 combinations in order to break in. Okay… it’s not that simple, but it is a secondary way of getting in to the computer, along with the password, and that weakens the security all by itself, plus it’s probably a far simpler key than is the main password. And this is required. Bad… really bad!
(3) Just sayin’. I have no direct evidence that Microsoft in any way serves the NSA, or that NSA requires online account. or that the NSA wrote that paragraph in the Windows EULA giving “Microsoft” rights to rummage through your computer when ever they want, or… No direct evidence what so ever.
(4) The entire computer industry is guilty of making a lot of computer users feel inadequate to the task. Making “tech support” (or was passes for tech support these days) into a profit center was an enormous step backwards, too. In ancient days I did tech support, for a high-end product, and if I did then what passes for tech support now, I’d have been fired for gross incompetence.