OK, rant mode on. This morning I spent over three hours running Windows Update on the
cool Viliv S5 UMPC I am evaluating. Yes, I realize it runs the older Windows XP operating system, but even so Microsoft must make the out of box experience (OOBE) better than this. I have recently experienced this process with Vista too, and it’s no better than XP. It’s time that Microsoft fix this absolutely unbearable process. The entire Windows Update process resulted in 5 reboots and took almost 3.5 hours. That is ridiculous in and of itself, but watching it closely (something you have to do as it requires user input at inopportune moments) really got me steamed, as I realized that Microsoft could easily fix this stupid process.
How can Microsoft make this more bearable for the end-user? Simple. Watching the update process made it clear that Microsoft supplied the OEM with Windows XP SP1. A large part of the update process was downloading and installing SP2, which has been out for years. The next pass of Windows Update then downloaded and installed SP3, which has also been out forever. Why the hell is Microsoft not supplying OEMs with the latest SP slipstreamed in the build image?
My fury didn’t end there, no siree. The update process also duly downloaded and installed .NET Framework 1.0. Then 1.1. Then 1.5. That is absolutely stupid on any level. Then came the core Microsoft applications that had to be “updated.” You may not believe it, but the update process had to download and install Internet Explorer 7, yes, that’s right 7, which is not even the current version available. Windows XP is still shipping with IE6 in the OEM image. Incredible.
That’s still not all. The update process had to download and install Windows Media Player 11 because the build image only contained WM9. Yes, version 9 even though WM11 has been out for a very long time.
Of course, once all of these “updates” were duly installed, then all of the security updates for each of them had to go through the same loop. I found myself getting more and more ticked off as this inane process dragged on.
I know that I’m going to start hearing that this isn’t even the latest version of Windows, like that’s a good excuse for Microsoft. Give me a break, Microsoft is still happy to sell XP to OEMs (and thus the consumer), so that’s no excuse for lousy support. All Microsoft has to do to end this stupid situation is to roll any update or upgrade that is distributed via Windows Update that is over six months old into the image provided to OEMs. That’s all it would take to end this goofy situation, and there will never be an excuse to not do this that I will accept. Take responsibility for your product, Microsoft.
I’m sure I’ll also hear that a lot of these updates are security related in nature and thus not Microsoft’s fault. I understand that, but I don’t care. As a consumer, I just want my stuff to work as easily out of the box as possible. As far as I’m concerned Microsoft could easily go a long way toward providing that experience if they would just do it.
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