They might have updated the page since he posted this, but on the front page of Xbox Game Pass there is a dedicated link at the top that says "Game Pass For PC (beta)". I clicked the link and followed it all the way to the end. (The PC version has the $1/month price.) Got charged $1. No issues (I already have the May update installed).
So it's possible they fixed things in the few hours after the article was launched.
Or it's possible that Shamus clicked the wrong link.
Given the amount of work that would be involved in fixing everything, it's simply more likely that Shamus clicked the wrong link at the beginning. That would also be consistent with him not seeing the $1 intro price later since it's repeated on nearly every page of the signup process...
From: Bill Gates
Sent: Wednesday, January 15, 2003 10:05 AM
To: Jim Allchin
Subject: Windows Usability Systematic degradation flame
I am quite disappointed at how Windows Usability has been going backwards and the program management groups don’t drive usability issues.
Let me give you my experience from yesterday.
I decided to download (Moviemaker) and buy the Digital Plus pack … so I went to Microsoft.com. They have a download place so I went there.
The first 5 times I used the site it timed out while trying to bring up the download page. Then after an 8 second delay I got it to come up.
This site is so slow it is unusable.
It wasn’t in the top 5 so I expanded the other 45.
These 45 names are totally confusing. These names make stuff like: C:Documents and SettingsbillgMy DocumentsMy Pictures seem clear.
They are not filtered by the system … and so many of the things are strange.
I tried scoping to Media stuff. Still no moviemaker. I typed in movie. Nothing. I typed in movie maker. Nothing.
So I gave up and sent mail to Amir saying – where is this Moviemaker download? Does it exist?
So they told me that using the download page to download something was not something they anticipated.
They told me to go to the main page search button and type movie maker (not moviemaker!).
I tried that. The site was pathetically slow but after 6 seconds of waiting up it came.
I thought for sure now I would see a button to just go do the download.
In fact it is more like a puzzle that you get to solve. It told me to go to Windows Update and do a bunch of incantations.
This struck me as completely odd. Why should I have to go somewhere else and do a scan to download moviemaker?
So I went to Windows update. Windows Update decides I need to download a bunch of controls. (Not) just once but multiple times where I get to see weird dialog boxes.
Doesn’t Windows update know some key to talk to Windows?
Then I did the scan. This took quite some time and I was told it was critical for me to download 17megs of stuff.
This is after I was told we were doing delta patches to things but instead just to get 6 things that are labeled in the SCARIEST possible way I had to download 17meg.
So I did the download. That part was fast. Then it wanted to do an install. This took 6 minutes and the machine was so slow I couldn’t use it for anything else during this time.
What the heck is going on during those 6 minutes? That is crazy. This is after the download was finished.
Then it told me to reboot my machine. Why should I do that? I reboot every night — why should I reboot at that time?
So I did the reboot because it INSISTED on it. Of course that meant completely getting rid of all my Outlook state.
So I got back up and running and went to Windows Update again. I forgot why I was in Windows Update at all since all I wanted was to get Moviemaker.
So I went back to Microsoft.com and looked at the instructions. I have to click on a folder called WindowsXP. Why should I do that? Windows Update knows I am on Windows XP.
What does it mean to have to click on that folder? So I get a bunch of confusing stuff but sure enough one of them is Moviemaker.
So I do the download. The download is fast but the Install takes many minutes. Amazing how slow this thing is.
At some point I get told I need to go get Windows Media Series 9 to download.
So I decide I will go do that. This time I get dialogs saying things like “Open” or “Save”. No guidance in the instructions which to do. I have no clue which to do.
The download is fast and the install takes 7 minutes for this thing.
So now I think I am going to have Moviemaker. I go to my add/remove programs place to make sure it is there.
It is not there.
What is there? The following garbage is there. Microsoft Autoupdate Exclusive test package, Microsoft Autoupdate Reboot test package, Microsoft Autoupdate testpackage1. Microsoft AUtoupdate testpackage2, Microsoft Autoupdate Test package3.
Someone decided to trash the one part of Windows that was usable? The file system is no longer usable. The registry is not usable. This program listing was one sane place but now it is all crapped up.
But that is just the start of the crap. Later I have listed things like Windows XP Hotfix see Q329048 for more information. What is Q329048? Why are these series of patches listed here? Some of the patches just things like Q810655 instead of saying see Q329048 for more information.
What an absolute mess.
Moviemaker is just not there at all.
So I give up on Moviemaker and decide to download the Digital Plus Package.
I get told I need to go enter a bunch of information about myself.
I enter it all in and because it decides I have mistyped something I have to try again. Of course it has cleared out most of what I typed.
I try (typing) the right stuff in 5 times and it just keeps clearing things out for me to type them in again.
So after more than an hour of craziness and making my programs list garbage and being scared and seeing that Microsoft.com is a terrible website I haven’t run Moviemaker and I haven’t got the plus package.
The lack of attention to usability represented by these experiences blows my mind. I thought we had reached a low with Windows Network places or the messages I get when I try to use 802.11. (don’t you just love that root certificate message?)
When I really get to use the stuff I am sure I will have more feedback.
Apparently this is a supposed email written by Bill Gates. A quick search turned up questionable sources for me, so I'm not sure, but whoever wrote it definitely knew what the torture was like back then...
It was originally published in the The Seattle Post-Intelligencer in a series of articles about Gates leaving Microsoft. The email itself was discovered in a trove of internal email messages Microsoft had to turn over as evidence during an anti-trust suit.
I can verify this experience. I recently returned to Windows gaming after over a decade away, and bruises like this are a reminder of why I switched to the Mac.
However, I really want to know: How/why did this happen?
No, not "because Micro$oft sucks!" Microsoft has produced many genuinely excellent things over the years, and it still does. Plus, don't be so lazy. I want to understand this at the organisational level.
Here's an educated guess: To make all this work right, a bunch of different teams _quite far apart_ in the org hierarchy had to all deliver the right things at the right times. Those teams work in different ways, under different deadlines.
So, why didn't they? Some theories, of which several may be true:
1. Because it's just hard
2. Because the planning was mishandled, and key teams didn't get assigned the tasks with enough time
2a. ... in fact, it was an incredibly late idea to begin with
3. Because there was no single person in charge of the effort who had enough organizational clout to override each team's existing pressures/deadlines
4. Because this is actually two problems:
a) make a bunch of separate teams do different related tasks
b) have complete them all by a universally agreed deadline
... and b) just isn't anywhere near as important as a).
Any ideas? I don't know about you, but understanding these organizational problems is _far_ more interesting to me than just dissing Microsoft.
Yeah really, because that. They have the resources to do it well. They have the ability to say "no, didn't work, this sucks, it's not being released today (or ever)." They chose not to do do these things. They suck. It's that simple.
I can do a one man effort and screw it up. They're meant to get results worthy of a company with a market cap of more money than god. If they can't AND they release a festering pile of garbage. "Microsoft Sucks!" Is a perfectly reasonable response. You don't praise Ford because they are capable of releasing may cars that don't explode.
> 3. Because there was no single person in charge of the effort who had enough organizational clout to override each team's existing pressures/deadlines
I think that's a big part of it. Look at the Windows app store. The team running the app store got told to promote UWP and not allow Win32 apps, so:
- No games in the app store
- Office was there, as an exception to the rule, then
removed and is now downloaded separately and not in the app store
- VScode is downloaded from it's own site and not in the app store
- Edge Insiders is downloaded from it's own site and not in the app store
- Microsoft Terminal betas will be provided over GitHub releases and not in the app store
All those products are excellent, none are in the Windows app store. It has to be a coordination/communication issue.
How did the generation of programmers before us ship products on physical media where they have a single shot to get it perfect and manage to do so a good portion of the time while we with our continuous integration systems, code completion and unit tests can't seem to get it right after many attempts?
It's mind boggling. It should be clear to anyone paying attention that what we are doing now isn't working so cargo culting the latest thought leaders is just going to help you produce the same bloated garbage everyone else is. I'm ashamed at the quality of product (some exceptions obviously) we have been putting out lately as an industry.
I don't have the solution, but it seems to me that we have to slow the hell down. Enough of the 60+ hour a week agile death marches. In order to produce products we can be proud of we need to take the time to consider them completely. "Move fast and break things" is how McDonald's operates, I want to do French Laundry level work where nothing gets to a customer without it being an example of the best our profession can offer.
"Move fast and break things" really means "Move fast and turn a profit".
The pressure to show good returns to institutional investors is the cause of the drop in quality you are seeing.
Just like everything else in the US economy, Wall Street has caused the software industry to hyper focus on short term gains. Quarter after quarter they are draining the nation, and when the bubble pops they will be the first to look elsewhere for new investment opportunities.
"...this isn’t an unfortunate one-off...a pattern of behavior ...Microsoft’s storefronts are always a snarl of broken technology with horrendous usability"
That sums up the situation so well. I never cease to be astonished by this sad fact.
So it's possible they fixed things in the few hours after the article was launched.
Or it's possible that Shamus clicked the wrong link.
Given the amount of work that would be involved in fixing everything, it's simply more likely that Shamus clicked the wrong link at the beginning. That would also be consistent with him not seeing the $1 intro price later since it's repeated on nearly every page of the signup process...