For all of us who feel only the deepest love and affection for the way computers have enhanced our lives, read on. At a recent computer expo (COMDEX), Bill Gates reportedly compared the computer industry with the auto industry and stated, "If GM had kept up with technology like the computer industry has, we would all be driving $25.00 cars that got 1,000 miles to the gallon."

In response to Bill's comments, General Motors issued a press release stating:


If GM had developed technology like Microsoft, we would all be driving cars with the following characteristics (and I just love this part):

1. For no reason whatsoever, your car would crash twice a day.

2. Every time they repainted the lines in the road, you would have to buy a new car.

3. Occasionally your car would die on the freeway for no reason. You would have to pull to the side of the road, close all of the windows, shut off the car, restart it, and reopen the windows before you could continue. For some reason you would simply accept this.

4. Occasionally, executing a maneuver such as a left turn would cause your car to shut down and refuse to restart, in which case you would have to reinstall the engine.

5. Macintosh would make a car that was powered by the sun, was reliable, five times! as fast and twice as easy to drive - but would run on only five percent of the roads.

6. The oil, water temperature, and alternator warning lights would all be replaced by a single "This Car Has Performed An Illegal Operation" warning light.

7. The airbag system would ask "Are you sure?" before deploying.

8. Occasionally, for no reason whatsoever, your car would lock you out and refuse to let you in until you simultaneously lifted the door handle, turned the key and grabbed hold of the radio antenna

9. Every time a new car was introduced car buyers would have to learn how to drive all over again because none of the controls would operate in the same manner as the old car.

10. You'd have to press the "Start" button to turn the engine off.

__________________

Current:
2014 VW Tiguan SEL 4Motion 43,000 miles.

2016 Hyundai Santa Fe Sport (wife's).

Past:
2006 Jetta TDI 135,970 miles. Sold Nov. '13.
1995 E-320 Special Edition. 220,200 miles. Sold Sept. '07.
1987 190-E 16 valve. 153,000 miles. Sold Feb. '06.
1980 300-D 225,000 miles. Donated to the National Kidney Foundation.
1980 240-D manual, 297,500 miles. Totaled by inattentive driver.

Oh, those are so excellent.

I've frequently thought about the reliability of new vehicles (for the first three years) versus the reliability of this POS that I am typing on. But, I should be happy. This one (XP) normally makes it through a whole week before doing something that it wants to report to Microsoft. The old one (98) would crash at least once per day, but never told Microsoft about it.

One additional point that should be added to the list:

11. After you purchase your vehicle, it begins to slow down from the very first day you own it. After a couple of years, it won't go over 30 mph, no matter what you do. No matter how many calls are placed to the dealer, nobody can get it to go faster than 30 mph. You would have to replace all the software in the vehicle to get the speed back up to 100 mph.

Gates and company really do have their heads up their collective asses.

Every company that sells mods for your car, and also porno magazines, comes by and puts a decal on your car without permission that's real hard to remove.

If your car breaks down on the side of the road, all the stuff that you have saved in the car and all the stuff in the trunk is immediately tossed out of the car and over the cliff. You are not allowed to save your stuff and nobody else can help you save it. You can take some small consolation that nobody else can use your stuff.

I wonder if GM would be doing so well if they outsourced most of their support?

I have gradually grown to loathe contacting MS support. They now outsource their enterprise level services to India. Recently I spent half a day on an installation related issue for Exchange server. The folks were helpful, spoke reasonable English, and provided detailed guidance, but still managed to completely miss the target. This was not the first time for such a failure, nor was it the worst. It is almost a pattern with them now a days.

It seems that GM and MS have in fact joined forces in that they both make products beyond their ability to support. We all suffer for this kind of miss-management. Bad and unsupportable products is why GM as a company is failing and Microsoft is running head long in the same direction. As I live a hand full of miles away from both Mr. Gates house and the Redmond campus, it is appalling that the wealthiest guy on the planet can’t provide competent support for his products, and it is insulting that he refuses to support his own countrymen.

__________________
...Tracy

'00 ML320 "Casper"
'92 400E "Stella"

In fairness to this comment, the need for backups has been know since the dawn of the computer age. It is not a direct or indirect responsibility of MS that hard drives fail. Hard drives are the very definition of state of the art technology, and absolutely no one should use a computer without a) a backup and b) one should never use a hard drive out of warranty.

__________________
...Tracy

'00 ML320 "Casper"
'92 400E "Stella"

How about the fact that he sells Windows XP all over the world, however, refuses to take any responsibility, whatsoever, for support of it. The computer manufacturer is saddled with this responsibility and they are thoroughly ill prepared for it.

You can get support from Microsoft for your brand new Microsoft product, but you must pay them for the privledge.

Why?? Isn't the typical warranty one or two years?

Not entirely true. If you buy a retail product, exclusive of enterprise stuff, MS provides free support for about a year. If you buy OEM, the OEM provider is obligated to offer the support. Other than that i agree

But you can probably buy a box from a vendor and put the retail product on it and get your support from MS.

__________________
...Tracy

'00 ML320 "Casper"
'92 400E "Stella"

He has no countrymen. He's a globalist. We're all one. We are the world. Khumbaya.

Reminds me of a poem from the UK.

bought a computer.
It cost a thousand pound,
But every time I switch it on
It keeps on falling down.

I used to think it was my friend,
But now it drives me 'round the bend.
You'd be surprised the time I spend:
REINSTALLING WINDOZE.

I switch it on -
What is this?
Something wrong with CONFIG SYS
This isn't my idea of bliss:
REINSTALLING WINDOZE.

I want to share my printers and
I want to share my files.
I want to share my anger
'Cause it drives me blooming wild.

My songs, they say, are sublime;
I've conquered cadence, mastered rhyme.
But now-a-days I spend my time:
REINSTALLING WINDOZE.

Reinstall - oh what fun!
It says it helps you get things done.
Every day now, everyone's
REINSTALLING WINDOZE.

Look again. It will say
All you do is plug and play.
How do I spend every day?
REINSTALLING WINDOZE.

It can't find my printer and
It can't locate my mouse.
The other day it drove me
Right out of the house.

Still unplugged, still unplayed,
I e-mailed God in search of aid.
He's far to busy, I'm afraid...
REINSTALLING WINDOZE.

Up at dawn for one more try
Will it work? - Can pigs fly?
How do I expect to die?
REINSTALLING WINDOZE.

I used to like a drink or three.
No time now - don't call for me.
How will I spend eternity?
REINSTALLING WINDOZE.

Yes, true. I was thinking of the software that is provided with a new machine.

Warranty depends on the drive manufacturer. The typical range is 1 to 3 years The folks that make drives know almost to the minute how much running time or power cycles they will survive before they fail. That’s why the warranty is what it is.

__________________
...Tracy

'00 ML320 "Casper"
'92 400E "Stella"

Aw if you know what yer doing you only gotta reinstall about every 3 years. How often you change yer oil?

__________________
...Tracy

'00 ML320 "Casper"
'92 400E "Stella"

I know quite a few people that have drives that are five, six, seven years old.

You are thinking limited number of cycles or limited number of hours???

This drive is two years old now and it has already started making some "click, click, click sounds every so often (hasn't done it in over one week now). Diametricalbenz thinks I'm on borrowed time.

Both hours and cycles apply. The servers I tend to run 24x7, as do most office workstations. In my experience, you can cycle a computer daily, not meaning a mere reboot but enough time to let the drive and whole machine cool completely, or let it run and it will last about the same time. I've seen countless cases where office machines bought in a batch will have the drives fail within days of each other. I could tell you stories.

IDE drives (both STA and AT/E/IDE) are akin to a mid engined vehicle at the cornering limit. You get a little whiny noise that you only hardly notice and you’re in the guardrail. I suggest getting a spare drive today, configure the drive as an extended partition and back up everything. A really good shareware program is called xxcopy. I use it on a lot of computers. There is also a program called ghost that will mirror one to the other.

I too know of some drives, including one of my mail servers that has been running 24x7 for about 11 years, but i sure don't put anything important on it, and even though nothing important is on it I still have 2 separate backups of everything on it on 2 separate machines.

__________________
...Tracy

'00 ML320 "Casper"
'92 400E "Stella"