Microsoft just don't care...
When I got a Mac one and a half year ago, I never thought I'd become an Apple fan-boy. I still have my gaming PC that I keep upgrading and it's caused my a lot of griefs lately. The power supply on my uber-fancy gaming case broke down. The machine had to be restarted 10-15 times until XP booted. All this restarting while booting screwed up the harddrive. So, now I've spent a bunch of $$$ on a new case, PSU and harddrive but I still can't get it up and running - because of sloppy programming.
After installing XP, I started installing the required drivers, but I have just one problem:
You need a mouse to install the mouse!
No, I'm not kidding. You have to click the device found, but it is not possible to navigate to it using the keyboard. I order to install Microsoft Intellimouse Explorer for Bluetooth, you need to have a wired mouse! I don't have one since my kids played with the old wired one I had and now it's broken. Not only are the batteries this mouse requires expensive, now I'll have to buy a mouse to use my mouse? Seriously - the reason why I think Microsoft is going down the drain faster than you can say "OSX" is that their coders simply does not care about the end user. They just don't care if they make crappy software.
Being a gamer and a mac-lover is kind of problematic, so I guess I'll keep the gaming PC for now. Here's a fun reminder to myself why I have a gaming PC:
Apple is improving somewhat in this area though, but it's far away from a gaming platform. Too bad Microsoft snapped Bungie/Halo back on 2000....
Comments
Just a few random thoughts here:
One discourse on why use PCs over Macs is because there are more games for PCs. But honestly, what is the percentage of people playing games on computer? I bet it's very, very slim. Most people using computers do not use it to play games.
True, if you're a gamer, the PC is the machine to go for. But that's not a general reason to stick with the PC.
Posted by: Thibault H. | November 18, 2007 05:34 AM
We do care, hence i'm here commenting on your blog :)
Q. Is your Keyboard connected? you can use that to tab around the Modal and install the said drivers. Failing that, I'm not sure how else we could of enabled you to install the driver unless we didn't ask you and it auto-installs?
In which case this will happen everytime you put the CD in?
How would you counteract this?
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Scott Barnes
RIA Evangelist.
Microsoft.
Posted by: Scott Barnes | November 18, 2007 02:17 PM
I feel you are being unfair to Windows. I'm sure you'll have the same problem if you try to install a wireless mouse into a fresh Mac OS. Besides, I doubt whether Mac OS can install wireless non-mac mouse. I feel the sucessful or rathing cheating strategy of Mac is that they have total control over hardware, graphic card, audio, USB etc.
Posted by: 5566 | November 18, 2007 06:03 PM
I dream of the day when a large game house decides to ditch (proprietary) DirectX for (non-proprietary) OpenGL.
OpenGL 2.1 finally supports hardware acceleration (something DirectX could do from the beginning... when it was still called WinG) and best of all it's cross platform.
OpenGL pre-dates WinG/DirectX but has developed at a glacial pace because while MS worked hard hooking developers on their Windows-only copy of OpenGL no one was working on the original.
In the first 5 years since it was introduced, DirectX left OpenGL in the dust, but like everything else MS does, once it won the battle it slowed down development with only two major updates in seven years.
Now, like a phoenix rising from the ashes, OpenGL is back. It just needs one killer game engine and it will be the beginning of the end for DirectX.
OpenGL runs on Linux, Mac OS X, BSD, Solaris, and even Windows.
It just needs someone to get the ball rolling.
Posted by: Tedious | November 19, 2007 12:44 AM
Scott: Hehe... Of course the Keyboard is connected. If it was not, I would surely have a problem using the Tab-key :)
That part of the window (where I select the mouse) is un-Tab-able! That's why I say that MS does not care. They never tried doing this without a mouse attached...
5566: nope. I can get the same mouse to install with absolutely any Mac - without installing drivers! It just works...
Tedious: I know. Luckily, the Flash 10 player with have hardware accelerated 3D (using the GPU!) so that could at least change online games. Much more fun to do stuff that is 100% cross-platform!
Posted by: Jensa | November 22, 2007 05:06 PM