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Tech Support Nightmare (3/29/98)
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A few days ago we mentioned the nasty bug that had cropped up in one of the applications shipping with Microsoft Office 98, which would actually delete your whole System Folder in certain situations. Well, not long afterwards, Microsoft posted a update for that particular "Remove Office 98" problem, which you've no doubt heard about from several sources by now if you're an Office user who needed the fix.
The thing that struck a chord with us, though, was reading in a Computer Reseller News article that Microsoft discovered the bug by instructing customers to run the utility in order to remove Office 98 to remedy other, considerably less serious, bugs with the software. As occasional tech support representatives ourselves, we shudder at the thought; when trying to talk a frantic customer through a problem nothing is worse than telling them to do something which makes everything worse instead of better. Seriously, imagine getting a call from someone who reports that running the Memo Wizard makes his system crash, and then telling him to run Remove Office 98, only to hear that now his whole system is unbootable. We're going to be having nightmares about that scenario for weeks, and our hearts go out to the poor Microsoft tech support folks who stumbled into such a painful situation.
Incidentally, Microsoft still insists that the deletion of the System Folder could only happen if the user "manually moved" the Office 98 library to the Extensions folder from the Microsoft Office 98 folder and then ran the utility, but several hapless users who watched their system software get flushed before their very eyes swear up and down that they never touched the file. Conspiracy theorists can do the math. And despite the esteem in which we generally hold Microsoft's programmers (interpret that as you will), by their own admission they did in fact write an application that removes the folder containing that particular library, blithely assuming that said library could only be in the Microsoft Office 98 folder. Color us disappointed in their abilities. They must've been up against a deadline or something.
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SceneLink (579)
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 | | The above scene was taken from the 3/29/98 episode: March 29, 1998: In its continuing quest to capture just the right mixture of whimsy and controversy in its ads, Apple signs up the Dalai Lama. Meanwhile, Microsoft engineers fix the ugly bug in the "Remove Office 98" application, as the higher-ups consider just when would be the best time to split into separate unstoppable amoeboid entities...
Other scenes from that episode: 578: Hello Dalai (3/29/98) Since the media ruckus surrounding Apple advertising had mostly shifted away from their controversial use of famous historical figures and towards their controversial public toasting of the Intel Pentium II processor, evidently Apple decided it was time to divert attention towards the famous figures again... 580: The Big Split (3/29/98) Psssst, hey buddy, c'mere. Wanna know why Microsoft is unstoppable, and the feds have no chance to stop the juggernaut? Then check out this ABCNEWS article and witness the future. The author makes some good points about how Microsoft stands to gain a bundle by subdividing itself into several business units that each have their own room to grow. While few concepts scare us quite as much as the continued spread of Microsoft into every nook and cranny of everyday life, that fact looks to be inevitable, as Microsoft could stop the government's current proceedings in a heartbeat by splitting into Microsoft Operating Systems, Microsoft Applications, Microsoft Media, and who knows what else...
Or view the entire episode as originally broadcast... | |  |
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