Why we hate our computers, installment no. 3742
Lee Gomes had a funny column in today's Wall Street Journal about how his Windows XP system mysteriously crashed and then -- after hours of consultation with Microsoft support failed to figure out the problem -- mysteriously returned to working order. With the bug refusing to reproduce itself so the support team could diagnose it, they had to close the case on Gomes: "An intermittent error," the Microsofties concluded, not too encouragingly.
We've all been there. I was doubly amused since I wrote a similar column almost a decade ago, about difficulties getting my then advanced Windows 3.1 computer to play Myst properly. That computer would be an antique today, and Windows XP is enormously better than Windows 3.1 in all sorts of ways. But our operating systems still stall out on us, leaving us perplexed and paralyzed.
Gomes gently rejects the idea that this is a Microsoft-specific issue: "Some anti-Microsoft partisans might say Windows itself was the bug. Maybe. But maybe the reason Windows seems to break more than Linux or Macintosh is simply that more people use it for more things."
Maybe. It's a fair point. (Though I have years of experience of Macs crashing too.) But at least with Linux, there's a clear, open, public process for identifying and fixing known bugs. You don't have to wait around for Redmond to issue the New, Improved, Higher-Priced Windows -- Still With Intermittent Errors!
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