I prefer to make fun of Microsoft for making a big deal about features that Linux has had for years (or Unix has had for decades). It's no less work, but it's still fun.

It's funny, for me every single time WMP said it couldn't recognize the codec and asked if it should look online to download one, it never worked. Ever. Of course, I finally stopped even trying WMP years ago when it became obvious Microsoft's highest priority was seeing how ugly they could make it. Maybe it's better now, but I avoid using anything Microsoft, even when on Windows, whenever possible. And I only run Windows for easy access to games and few other apps.

Let software stand on its own merits.

You say that in a world where 99% of business users have Office installed, and Microsoft uses everything in their huge portfolio of evil to keep it that way?

I agree that the OSS community needs to make better software, and in many cases they already do. But you can't just compete with Microsoft on quality. They will crush you almost every time. Sure, Mozilla has driven IE from its once overwhelming market share, but that isn't slowing down the sales of Windows, or that thorn in the side of all that is good, Office.

It was so cool when the original artists performed the parody.

I never used the mythical Zed-X. Are you telling me it had less than 16x16 resolution? That doesn't seem right.

The TRS-80 could do 128x48.

I first used Apple ][s and wrote a simple game... I think I have the source code printed out somewhere. Later at Virginia Tech in the fall of 1982, I discovered the computer lab in the library that had IBM PCs that only had monochrome cards and for a short while were still running DOS 1. A couple years later the PCs in the labs all had CGA capabilities. At the time I wrote a graphics editor using a hacked text mode with the block characters in the >128 range that you could use to draw in 16 colors (woo!) with a resolution of 160x100. Fun times.

It always amuses me when (U.S.) Americans are completely ignorant of British (and Canadian) spelling of words.

I once worked in a team of 4 developers and one day one of them was reading an article and commented "Hey, they spelled "organization" wrong. They used an 's'." I replied, "No, that just the British spelling." All three of my teammates were utterly amazed that I could know something like that, which itself was even more amazing to me.

I would comment that people should try reading books, but in fact, it occurs to me now that I probably read more non-American English on the web simply because it's so easy to access international content. e.g., A friend of mine here in Virginia blogs about U.S. politics for the Daily Mail.

Anyhow, it just amazes me that these kinds of things get complained about.

Don't laugh... in 10 to 20 years we might be doing just that.

Yeah, I'd feel sorry for poor Flick if he had to use an unheated toilet seat. Yikes!

There is tremendous waste, and yes, fraud, by military contractors but there are plenty of legitimate reasons why military hardware is so expensive.

You deserved a mod for following up your mistake with a good funny.

I wish I could take credit for that, but there's simply nothing about Microsoft search that makes me remember it exists. Google is not the be-all end-all of everything but Microsoft is always years behind them.

I would bet you lunch it's because 99% of those old XP machines have been replaced, not upgraded.

Of course XP is dying very fast. You haven't been able to buy a new XP machine in about 4 years, except for netbooks, and that's been over 2 years. XP is only disappearing because you can't get it any more. I would bet very few machines have been upgraded from XP.

I would also bet that 95% of users would still be perfectly served by XP. I think Windows 7 is fine, but there's definitely nothing significant about it I prefer to XP.

If you don't use IE, like any sane person, and you don't care about DirectX 11, which counts everyone who doesn't play leading-edge games, the only advantages of Windows 7, for home users at least, are the latest security fixes and support for newer hardware. Microsoft's biggest problem was that XP was really quite good, and they've simply got nothing else to offer. The best we can ever hope for is incremental improvements, mostly driven by advances in the hardware technology.

Windows support is only ever free if your time has no value.

And assuming there's an actual answer to your question. I would imagine the only support issues MS can actually solve are those that can be easily answered with a Google search or two... at least based on my experience.

...and yet it's still perfectly fine for 95% of users.

Well, that was one thing MS got right... about 10 years too late... but right nonetheless.

Of course, Vista shipped with such moronic security features such having to ask permission multiple times to rename an icon on the desktop, but they managed to get it right with Windows 7.

I'm sure there are a lot of Fortune 500 companies still running XP. The biggest reason to upgrade by far, as has always been true for Windows, is for newer hardware support, or when security patches stop. Actually, I'm sure almost no one actually upgraded even to Windows 7, they just bought a new computer with it.