February 19, 2016
Dear Everyone:
Every few days a
little window pops up on my computer screen.
It offers me a “free” upgrade to
Windows 10.
You may have seen the same thing on your computer screen if you
are “still” using
Windows 8, or even
Windows 7. To which I
say three little words:
Don’t do it!!!
You may ask:
Why not? After all,
it’s a FREE upgrade to the newest version of Windows.
To which I ask:
Whatever happened to Windows 9?
Have you noticed
that Microsoft has
jumped from Windows 8 (current) to Windows 10 (newer) without stopping
anywhere at Windows 9?
Wonder why?
Some years ago
the company that I used to work for decided to use the “Microsoft Model”
for releasing software upgrades.
In a nutshell, it is:
Release it Now. Fix it
Later.
In more detail,
once a feature was included, it would be included even if it wasn’t
ready when the software would be released.
At some point in the Initiate-Develop-Release cycle, the
engineers would look at all the new features and decide which ones they
could reasonably complete in time for the release.
Then they would focus on those features.
And the other
features? Well, they would
be included, of course; only they wouldn’t actually work the way they
were supposed to work. They
would be “fixed” in the next upgrade, or in the next “Service
Pack”, which consisted of a whole bunch of “bug fixes” that would be
available later. Or in the
Service Pack (SP2)
after that.
So why is
Microsoft offering a “free” upgrade to its latest version of Windows?
Easy. They want you,
the customer, to debug
their software for them. You
find the problems and report them and they “apologize for the
inconvenience” and eventually supply you with the solution, once they
find it. In the meantime
you, the customer, certainly can’t demand a refund, since the upgrade
was “free”.
And, as an added
bonus for the company, they find out which features matter most to the
customers, thus prioritizing the “upgrades” for them, based on the
number of complaints they receive.
And they redesign the system based on those reported problems.
What this means
for the average user is:
They “fix” things that were never broken in your opinion.
You learned how to use a particular feature.
Then, when a new version comes out, you discover that the feature
has been completely reworked and you have to go through a whole new
learning process to get back to where you were at the beginning.
Like when the
printer, which worked just fine until the “free upgrade”, but doesn’t
work now. Oops.
The simplest
thing to do is ignore all those offers and remember, “You get what you
pay for.” Just because “110
million other people have already upgraded” doesn’t mean you have to
jump off the same cliff.
When it’s time to get a new computer is soon enough to have to learn
about Windows 10.
By which time
they may have worked most of the really big bugs out of it.
Just in time for Windows 11.
Or 12. Anyone for 13?
Love, as always,
Pete
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