Today, I've been fortunate to experience some of the phenomena that, in my opinion, exemplify the stupid end of Microsoft's approach to... well, just about everything on the consumer end of things.
A little context first...
I'm in a cafe right now, and I brought my tablet instead of my Mac because I had some forms to fill out for the sale of my condo. The tablet functionality makes my life much easier. Instead of dealing with faxes - one of the oldest and crappiest technologies still in use - I turn PDFs into images and then fill out the forms using Sketchbook Pro. I have formaphobia, and anything that makes the repetitive, confusing, and often seemingly pointless activity of filling out a dozen forms every two hours is something that, if not a source of joy, is at least a less painful alternative dealing with these things in meatspace.
While here, I suddenly felt like writing about a number of things. Stuff I'm still going to write about, but not until I get back to my Mac.
I author all my posts with Windows Live Writer. Not this one, though, as I'm having to use the junky web interface built in to Community Server. It's fine in an emergency, but it's definitely the dinky backup parachute you don't want to have to use.
I'm using it because I didn't have Windows Live Writer on this machine. I thought it'd be a simple matter to grab it, install, and get to work, but I'm a good twenty minutes into the installation and little progress has been made. This would already be an unpleasant experience for a heavier app, but it's unacceptable for something as simple as Windows Live Writer.
I only code nowadays for kicks, and I don't write anything substantial. I'm back to doing things for the fun of it, and because I still love what coding does to my brain. There's a great reward that comes from acquiring an understanding of a mess of cobbled together ideas implemented in cumbersome ways. That sounds like a complaint, but it's actually one of the things I like most about coding. There's still, even after decades, a feeling that programming technology is the wild west of the computer world. However, the type of fun of overcoming the challenge of coding isn't fun when found in end user apps.
Even though I don't code much anymore, I have years upon years of experience, and I have a pretty good idea of what goes into creating any particular app.
That's why I'm confused and frustrated about my experience today with getting Windows Live Writer.
I love Windows Live Writer - the app itself. It's one of the few reasons I run Windows XP inside Parallels on my Mac. It's one of the apps I didn't want to leave behind when making the switch. It's simple, easy to use, and, despite being a Microsoft app, doesn't get in the way of itself. The interface is a little cluttered for what it is, but a couple settings can clear that right up.
What I can't stand is how difficult it is to get the stupid thing. I headed over to the Windows Live Writer Blog and started the download there. It was about a 2 MB file. It was a nice change from the usual bloated downloads you get from Microsoft.
Of course, it turns out that it's just an installer, and not one specific to Windows Live Writer. As many of you have probably learned, it's a full on assault on your sanity. Instead of simply installing the one app I want, I have to negotiate with the god damned thing just to get the "real" installation started.
It reminded me of the old Real Player days when, before finally agreeing to install the app, the installer wanted your social security number, a list of any STDs you have or have had, your checking account number along with the ABA, an agreement to subscribe to eighty magazines you'd never read, and an offer to be put in a drawing to win a trip for two to Cancun if you mail them your passport.
When Real Player crossed the line from being self-promotional to being a scourge on your computing life, people stopped using it. Not everybody - there are still a few victims out there who don't know any better - but it's widely hated in geek circles where tolerance for bullshit is minimal.
Given the advantage of hindsight, it's mind-boggling that the Windows Live Writer team has gone down the same path. And, given my experience on the Inside, I'm sure that the Windows Live Writer team has little to do with the stupidity of the install experience, but as an end-user now, it's not my job to figure it out or to care. They're being represented by this crap, and their product is going to take a hit because of it. It's unfortunate, as it's likely some dipshit-originated system imposed on the Live Writer team by some grand Initiative in the Microsoft tradition. Someone does something good, and other people, eager for success and recognition internally, hijack and then ruin the product. This happened to me, albeit in a different way (and not when I was with Channel 9). I was in shock at how easy it was for someone else to swoop in and destroy something I was just getting right. The Windows Live Writer team probably - hopefully - feels the same way about what happened to their product.
That's Microsoft for you.
To get back to it, I was interrogated and pushed around by the Windows Liver Writer installer. It wanted to change default search and web settings. It prompted me to install a bunch of crap I don't want. If I wanted the other apps, I would have gone and installed them separately. If I wanted my defaults changed, I would have done it myself. It wanted to do everything but install Windows Live Writer.
After a dozen stupid dialogues, it moved on to some phase during which it was looking for other "Live" apps. I don't know how they've implemented the search, but it feels like they've bypassed checking the obvious places and instead scanned the entire disk bit by bit until they found something that might be an object of the search.
That went on for twenty minutes. I'm not exaggerating. Yeah, Vista runs like a dog on my Toshiba tablet (despite the Core Duo 2 whatever whatever blah blah blah and more than enough RAM), but even that can't explain why there was such hardcore suckage.
Eventually, the install dialogue (was it actually installing?) notified me that things were taking longer than expected, and thanked me for my patience. I'm not sure what patience it was referring to. My patience ran out in the first three minutes when I wasn't able to install this one little thing.
What gets me is that Windows Live Writer is a simple app. Any coder with a bit of experience and dedication could whip something similar up without too much effort or time. In the old days, I might have done that. The first client side blog authoring tool I ever used was one I wrote in an evening with VS.Net Beta 1. It tied into a blogging system I wrote in Java. I didn't even know what I was doing, but the thing still worked, and it worked well.
Windows Live Writer is much fancier than the little client I created, but as I noted, I spent little time on mine. Given a few weeks, I could have grown it into something providing the basic features Windows Live Writer that I like so much.
So, given the simplicity of this app, why in the hell is it so damned hard to install? Its footprint is roughly 10 MB. In 2008, that's like dumping a digital grain of rice on a drive.
Eventually, the CPU spiked and the laptop died. I'm back at home now, writing this on my Mac where I have an older version of Windows Live Writer installed under XP inside Parallels. I have no intention of "upgrading" from this release.
But this isn't just about Windows Live Writer. It's about some basic Microsoft methodologies that totally disregard the user's needs and limited resources. When I say "resources," I'm referring to things like the amount of time people have to spend working with your kludge. Users are already overwhelmed by spam, the work they have to do, other apps to install, updates that arrive and force you to restart when you're right in the middle of something... it's disrespectful to demand more of them than necessary. Time wasted shouldn't be the blackmail of installing an app.
These people at Microsoft are impulsive. They internalize every bit of user criticism and then bend over backwards to accommodate everybody. It sounds like a warm fuzzy way to work, but it's just plain stupid. It results in huge changes with each release. The familiar gets shifted around and replaced. Imagine waking up each morning with your nose attached to a different part of your body.
This stuff is all done by committee, and it seems as though the products are designed directly from brainstorming sessions where "no idea is a bad idea."
It's like giving a dozen children each a set of Legos and a unique goal, but to attach their creations to the others using whatever means necessary. You'd end up with a freakish pile of nonsense because the structure wasn't looked at holistically. Somehow, this thing is allowed to continue to exist, and the kids continue to add their own touches. Over a few iterations, you have a space station next to a castle sitting on a volcano near a beach and a village of pigmy cannibals.
Good job, guys.
I know I'm becoming a snotty Mac user, but after months of having made the transition, I understand why we go snotty. Apple doesn't churn out perfection, but they're hyperaware of the user experience. Things occasionally crash, and Safari has a memory leak that, although a rare event, can shut down the app.
But overall, these are small things. They stand out because they're the exceptions. Most of the time things simply work. As I've said before, even Windows runs far better as an app under OS X than it does on its own. I don't know why that is, but there you go.
It's things like this that drained me of the motivation to continue promoting Microsoft products. The further in I got, the worse my opinion of the company was. The clutter you experience on the user end is the product of clutter internally.
If it weren't cruel and a danger to the economy, I'd suggest that Microsoft fire about 40,000 people.
What that company needs is to stick a finger down its throat, vomit up the offending elements, and move on.
[Gratuitous Links to my Homies - Not Part of the Post Above] [Learn More]
Instead of doing these all the time, I'm going to switch back to having a traditional blogroll. I'll still add links for the one-offs, but the regulars will always be listed on the side. Shouldn't be too long before it's done...