
Bill Gates on Windows Usability (2003) - tosh
https://twitter.com/sriramk/status/1187791335345930240
======
TimTheTinker
The early 2000's were a period of especially low usability for Microsoft's
products.

At the time, I had a roommate who was a die-hard Windows user. Over several
years, I tried to convince him to switch to Mac OS X, with examples like: (a)
Just drag/drop a PDF to a printer spool window, and it will print; (b) to
install an app, usually you just have to drag it to the Applications folder;
to uninstall it, simply drag it to the trash; (c) the simplicity of System
Preferences and Software Update; (d) the composited window manager, enabling
things like Expose.

What finally converted him was the horrible experience around updating to
Windows XP SP3. Recall at the time, Windows Update opened as a control in an
Internet Explorer window. Well, he must have waited a very long time until
Windows Update no longer supported IE6. So when he attempted to update to SP3,
he got an error that the current version of Windows Update required IE7. But
for some reason, he could not install IE7 without updating to SP3 -- again,
likely because he waited a long time after the SP3 update became available. He
told me "I'm never using Windows again" and promptly bought his first MacBook.
To my knowledge, he still hasn't gone back.

~~~
partiallypro
Still to this day people view Windows through the lense of XP experiences. I
always wonder how much damage that era did. People claimed to "love" XP, but
they are all rose tinted in memory. Everyone hated XP until SP2 and SP3. The
Security Center was something everyone hated too. But yeah, some things it did
really well, but others not so much. 10 is so much better than people give it
credit for, and yes there are still bugs. But, all things considered it
without a doubt the strongest OS Microsoft has ever built, and it is moving
forward...where I feel like OSX is finally moving backward.

~~~
riffraff
People loved XP coming from '98 which was way more prone to crash, BSOD, data
losses etc, from what I recall.

~~~
tinus_hn
Don’t forget Windows ME which was truly a turd in a class of its own.

~~~
asveikau
I still don't completely understand why they didn't make Win2k into a
"consumer" product. A lot of techies here who installed Windows themselves in
that era probably skipped ME and went to that. But all the consumer PCs
shipped with 98 or ME.

I remembering hearing at the time that this was about hardware support and/or
app compatibility. But my cynical side just thinks they wanted to justify
charging more for a workstation SKU for another release cycle.

~~~
TheKarateKid
Actually, ME was the result of a development disaster similar to the one which
resulted in Vista.

Microsoft was planning on building an entirely new Internet-focused consumer
version of NT. It was too ambitious for its time, so to meet deadlines, most
of it was scrapped and some UI elements were backported into an updated
Windows 98 which became ME. This is why Explorer for both ME and 2000 look
similar despite having little else in common.

Other elements of the scrapped project made its way into XP, but barely
compared to what it was supposed to be. I think XP’s fancy login screen was
one of them.

If anyone’s interested I’ll try to find where I read all of this. It might’ve
been on Paul Thurrott’s Windows Supersite or another site that collected
Windows betas.

~~~
Lammy
Windows codename Neptune:
[https://microsoft.fandom.com/wiki/Microsoft_Neptune](https://microsoft.fandom.com/wiki/Microsoft_Neptune)

It’s interesting to see twenty year old experiments with flat UI designs
considering how dominant that style is today with Android 5, iOS 7, Windows 8,
etc.

~~~
garaetjjte
These apps looks like they are made in IE6-era Electron..

~~~
Lammy
They are! The same tech powered Active Desktop and the "smart" Explorer
sidebars in Windows XP:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HTML_Application](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HTML_Application)

------
Hamuko
_> So they told me that using the download page to download something was not
something they anticipated._

Quote for the ages.

~~~
fabatka
I have a quote that I personally heard in a meeting at the time I was a
contractor at GE:

 _The green check marks mean nothing!_

The quote itself maybe isn't too descriptive, so here's some background: Our
team's work was dependent on another team's progress, and so they maintained a
progress indicator to know what parts they finished working on. Our team
didn't progress very fast, because we encountered a lot of little problems in
the parts that were marked 'done' by the other team, and our manager kept
nagging us about missing deadlines. After we explained the situation enough
times to our managers, they called a meeting with the other team's managers.
After 15 minutes of manager-talk, the other team's leader finally said the
above quote that would end the meeting almost immediately.

------
enitihas
Bill was doing a fantastic job here, but it is a bit too sad to see how most
of the executives in the mail show much less concern for the company's and
customer's goals, and more concerns on _who_ should own the problem. I think
this is a bit too common in any corporate environment.

~~~
gist
> Bill was doing a fantastic job here

Fantastic job of what? Building a company that has a typical type of
organization, employees and incentives that this can happen at? It's like the
CEO of Comcast (Brian Roberts) going into a Comcast store (in stealth; or
phoning them) and then experiencing the frustration of a normal customer and
the idiots they deal with.

There is ZERO reason a large company with resources can't make sure that
things like this don't happen. They simply choose (and get rewarded) for
looking at the big picture and not the small everyday details.

I wonder how many times Bill has been aggravated with his own operating system
and then had to work hours and hours (with nobody to ask and a normal person's
brain and no internet resources) to have to get out something in order to earn
a living.

~~~
signal11
> There is ZERO reason a large company with resources can't make sure that
> things like this don't happen

IMHO, large companies don’t always work in perfect, laser-focused speculation.

As a result lots of big companies have competing “pulls” — eg fiefdoms.
Interference from investors. New CEOs who are still finding their feet. Lame
duck CEOs. Regulatory distractions.

In theory a company would be laser focused on customer satisfaction and doing
the best possible thing for their customers. In practice these gaps in BigCo
attention gives nimble newcomers a chance to shine.

~~~
gist
> As a result lots of big companies have competing “pulls” — eg fiefdoms.

Exactly. Why? Because they suck plain and simple. My wife (a highly paid and
educated professional) just wasted 3 hours today trying to get a simple new
cable box installed from Verizon. Earlier she tried to have Best Buy do a
simple TV pickup and ended up having to cut her losses cancel Best Buy and
just get 800junk to pick it up (at a higher cost). There is ZERO reason large
companies can't get things like that right that they do over and over and over
again every day.

I say this as someone who has actually operated and run a small company and
had employees. Yes it was not a large corporation. But it had way less
resources available and very generally not even enough people to get done what
needed to get done. Don't let anyone tell you different. It's the same thing
people have had shoved down their throats ever since (ironically) 1981 when
the IBM PC came out along with that crap that Microsoft put on it. 'It's not
us it's you'. People just buy that thinking and that is why companies get away
with what they do. (There is also consumers and businesses making poor choices
and not wanting to pay for quality for sure).

~~~
TheOtherHobbes
Corporations are officially aligned with the interests of shareholders, and
unofficially aligned with the interests of management, many of whom are more
interested in turf wars and power plays than in doing their jobs.

Customers come at the bottom of that list.

In a worker-hostile culture, employees at all levels can easily become passive
aggressive towards customers, because they're caught between bullying by
management, which they have no control over, and pushback from angry
customers, which they also have no control over.

MS has always operated like this. It's a huge machine that spends far more
energy on internal politics, PR and impression management, and status games
than it does on producing solid, reliable, beautifully crafted products.
Personally my experience of MS products has been that the absolute best
products are ok, I guess, while the worst have been so incompetently made
they've been barely usable.

Apple has begun to operate like this. Jobs was User Number 1 and could push
back on UX he didn't like. He wasn't always right, and he couldn't cover
everything, but his influence was always there.

Cook is more of an autocrat and I strongly suspect he has an unconscious
passive aggressive stance towards users. Apple has consistently produced high-
profile user frustrations during his tenure - Maps, keyboard-gate, the
reluctance to support pro users, Catalina, general software quality, among
others - and there's been no move to make structural and cultural changes that
could make future mistakes less likely.

Meanwhile the share price is doing just fine.

~~~
scarface74
The original iPad UI would have been just a blown up iPhone UI without any
accordances to the larger screen if Jobs had of had is way. There was push
back from other developers at Apple. This came out in some of the Debug
podcast’s interviews with former Apple employees.

Also don’t forget that all of the pre iCloud service disasters happen under SJ
including MobileMe.

Apple moved away from “Pro users” under Jobs. It was clear that he even said
before he came back to Apple that if he was in charge he would “milk the Mac
for all its worth and move on to the next big thing”.

------
sriramk
[OP - I posted the tweet]

If you liked this, you might like my collection of business memos here.
[https://sriramk.com/memos](https://sriramk.com/memos)

I remember this particular memo very well as I was at Microsoft at the time
and it felt so unfair to see the reaction to what you expect any good CEO to
do.

~~~
std_throwaway
Can you provide an alternate link to the PDF that works worldwide? Some people
are getting a 451 error.

~~~
cbhl
Are the folks getting 451 in Europe? Might be GDPR...

~~~
Hamuko
It's pretty much exclusively GDPR.

------
pwinnski
Good times. I remember when this was part of the court case.

Sounds like what we need is for Tim Cook to try to use iOS 13 and lose access
to one of his favorite apps by upgrading to Catalina, and then to get a crumb
or something into his keyboard.

~~~
0x38B
...or try using Google Docs in Safari on iOS 13 with a text editor in split
view.

Two blinking cursors and no easy way to choose which window is active. To
enter text in the Google Doc after using my text editor, I have to tap the URL
bar twice, dismiss the suggestions, and then it's active.

Given that my iPad is my only computer, this release has been really rough.
It's getting there, and I'm sure with time it will only get better.

Just wish it was more reliable and less buggy: I've used iPads constantly
since the very first one, but this has had me looking at laptops and
Microsoft's Surface...

~~~
phendrenad2
I'm sorry but I'm pretty sure any fix for your workflow would break the
workflow of many people. Both windows being active seems like the entire
selling-point of splitscreen, right? (I don't have an iPad so I'm just
guessing). The right solution is probably a Google Docs app that is able to be
aware of other instances of itself.

------
knolan
2003 was the pinnacle of MS Office for me. The introduction of the ‘Ribbon of
Confusion’ in 2007 around the time of the adoption of 16:9 screens was
appalling. The ribbon was welded to the top of the screen leaving a letterbox
sized area for your documents. It was like using a toolbar encrusted IE.

This all happened when Adobe were demonstrating excellent UI design in their
pro apps with pallets that could be docked or moved about as required. It was
like MS looked at InDesign and Photoshop and simply didn’t understand what
they were copying, which imho typifies many MS design decisions.

~~~
dmitriid
A huge amount of user research went into the original ribbon. However, it
looks like they decided that no further research was needed and just started
moving everything into the ribbons without any thinking whatsoever.

~~~
willtim
Using the new ribbon version of office I found out that document properties
could only be inspected by clicking on a golden orb and going into a menu
called "Publish". Similarly most other less-often used features became
impossible to find. I've refused to use office for any substantial document
ever since. I can only assume that this research was targeted at new users and
not existing users.

~~~
dmitriid
Microsoft destroyed their old blogs and with them a lot of knowledge they
contained.

Thankfully, Internet Archive preserved the "Why the new UI" series of posts:
[https://web.archive.org/web/20080316101025/http://blogs.msdn...](https://web.archive.org/web/20080316101025/http://blogs.msdn.com/jensenh/archive/tags/Why+the+New+UI_3F00_/default.aspx)

Relevant parts: by Office 2003 they had 250 top-level menu items and 50
toolbars (Part V), and this was becoming unmanageable. In Office 2003 they
started collecting info on how people are using Office: About 1.3 billion
sessions since shipping Office 2003, over 352 million command bar clicks in
Word over the last 90 days (Part VI).

I won't quote the rest because it's a very good series of articles.

------
stephenr
I very rarely use Windows now (at the time this happened I was working with it
M-F doing support) - I’m not convinced it’s any better now is it? I downloaded
an “IETester” image from Microsoft to confirm behaviour of a clients site from
a Windows PC - it literally spent more time installing updates and rebooting
than I did either downloading the entire vm image file or actually testing the
thing I wanted to test.

How fucking convoluted is Windows that every single update that can only
install via a reboot, then suddenly produces more such updates?

How on earth does anyone still use this on a daily basis?

~~~
linuseouyt
I have an Ubuntu dedicated server. I reboot it every Sunday, yet there is
rarely a week where on Friday I don't see this when SSHing in due to auto-
updates:

    
    
        0 packages can be updated.
        0 updates are security updates.
    
    
        *** System restart required ***
    
        Ubuntu 18.04.1 LTS
    
        Linux ubuntu 4.15.0-34-generic #37-Ubuntu SMP Mon Aug 27 15:21:48 UTC 2018 x86_64 x86_64 x86_64 GNU/Linux

~~~
icedchai
You reboot your server every week? Whatever for?

~~~
Enginerrrd
Don't some updates set a "reboot required" flag?

~~~
icedchai
Yes. My point is doing this all the time is, generally, a waste of time. I
recommend turning off automatic updates, do it on a schedule. Weekly is too
frequent. I have some servers I update _yearly._ That may be too long. At a
previous startup, we had boxes that hadn't seen an update in 3+ years.

------
svnpenn
It seems they haven’t really learned.

Granted, some aspects are better. You can get to the .NET download in about 10
seconds [1]. But, why can’t they make Visual C++ easy? What does it have to
look like this?: [2]. Or this?: [3]. Why can’t they just have this?: [4]. Why
does it need to be buried in a blog post, or a help article?

And then there’s the new Microsoft Terminal, which was only available in the
Microsoft Store until people complained [5].

[1] [https://dotnet.microsoft.com/download/dotnet-
core](https://dotnet.microsoft.com/download/dotnet-core)

[2]
[https://blogs.technet.microsoft.com/jagbal/2017/09/04/where-...](https://blogs.technet.microsoft.com/jagbal/2017/09/04/where-
can-i-download)

[3] [https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/help/2977003/the-
latest-...](https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/help/2977003/the-latest-
supported-visual)

[4]
[https://microsoft.com/download/visual-c](https://microsoft.com/download/visual-c)

[5]
[https://github.com/microsoft/terminal/issues/1386#issuecomme...](https://github.com/microsoft/terminal/issues/1386#issuecomment-509853002)

------
mttjj
The Twitter screengrab is only showing part of the PDF. Be sure to click the
link in the tweet for the full email chain.

~~~
Hamuko
451 Unavailable For Legal Reasons: Sorry, this content is not available in
your region.

~~~
mttjj
I'm still able to download the PDF. (USA here)

~~~
sli
The 451 is probably GDPR-related.

~~~
codedokode
I am from Russia (sadly no GDPR here) and I get 451.

------
jokoon
Recently I installed specific parts of MSVC, since I'm using SFML and for now
they only deliver binaries for 2017. After all I might not have needed to use
2017 or a particular SDK, since there seem to be ABI compatibility now, but I
discovered that too late.

So I used this vs intaller, and I discovered that the vs dev prompt did not
set appropriate folder to use cl.exe and lib.exe because it might only do it
for the latest SDK or toolset thing. I still managed to do what I wanted, but
this is another one of those details.

I still enjoy using C++ though, but it seems way better than the old days, I
think... Although I have to admit MSVC sometimes crash and restart on machines
that don't have enough RAM (6GB). I wonder how Clion compares to MSVC... I
hope clion will be cheaper in the future.

~~~
Narishma
How is 6GB not enough for MSVC? Are you compiling a web browser or something?

~~~
gruez
Windows + background services probably takes 1-2 GB. devenv.exe probably takes
up another gig (more if you use extensions).

------
contravariant
Huh, that's the first time I've encountered a 451 (Unavailable For Legal
Reasons) in the wild.

------
adamkittelson
I signed up for the xbox game pass for pc (beta) today. After downloading the
app I found that signing in to said app was completely broken. After some
googling I found a workaround, if I sign in to a completely different app
(xbox companion) that would also sign me in to the xbox game pass app.

Then I tried to download a game (The Outer Wilds). The download just sat at 0
bytes. I tried several things so I'm not positive what actually fixed it, but
I think what did it is I located the folder it created for game downloads,
which I did not even have permission to view, and forced an ownership change
of the folder to my user.

Granted this is a beta but... not looking good for usability so far.

~~~
officeplant
The sad thing is the xbox game pass has been working for PC for ages now and a
year ago the process was simpler.

------
cosmodisk
Software engineers should never be allowed anywhere near UX decisions on their
own.At work, I'm often in a position,where I need to chose between 'easier for
the end user(internal)' and 'easier for the
business/manager/developer/whatever'. I try my best to advocate for users most
of the time,even if it complicates some things on the implementation side of
things. Most technical people,if allowed,would make things far more difficult
than they need to be. Not sure what went wrong at MS, however they keep making
it more and mote difficult with no apparent good reason. Even the
documentation websites are so confusing,even Oracle starts looking good in
comparison... I remember a discussion with my colleague,a BA, who argued that
people should just fill in a few of those extra fields. Yes,I said, it's easy
for you to say this,because you'll just pull a report on these fields,while
the users will be doing this hundreds of times a week...

------
monocasa
It really says something about the underlying issue that caused that, how the
relevant managers devolve into I told you sos and ownership fights rather than
getting in a room and leaving with a cohesive plan that their individual teams
will execute on.

------
omnifischer
Last line... at the end:

I reboot every night.

~~~
jlv2
That's actually not the last line!

It's only the last in the screen shot posted to twitter. The PDF contains more
of the email, and it gets worse (if you can believe that).

~~~
acqq
The rest (it really gets worse)!

"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."

Still try to read the pdf (links are here on HN) as there are the reactions of
the managers and it seems most... don't feel they have anything to do with all
that.

------
bitwize
I wish he would do this again. Windows 10 is evolving into a major shitshow.

------
shireboy
funny as I'm reading this I'm installing a bunch of dev apps using chocolatey.
"choco install visualstudiocode -y" and it's done. I'm kind of surprised MS
doesn't have an official way to do this, but it's better than MSDN dev
downloads was back in the day. Or (shudder) the big binder of MSDN CDs.

~~~
basch
[https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/nuget/what-is-
nuget](https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/nuget/what-is-nuget)

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NuGet](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NuGet)

you can Register-PackageSource and then Install-Package which is basically
what Chocolatey is.

In fact, to install chocolatey on your computer you can run "Install-Package
-Name Chocolatey"

"Set-PackageSource -Name chocolatey -ProviderName chocolatey" makes Install-
Package more useful, at which point you dont need chocolatey installed, as
youve already added it as a repo that Install-Package can access. "Install-
PackageProvider Chocolatey" also works. I find it all a little confusing which
is which but oh well.

I suppose its up to you which is more pleasant to type "choco install xx -y"
or "Install-Package -Name xx"

------
voldacar
It's such an anachronism that Windows still needs to reboot to update itself

~~~
muststopmyths
I use Ubuntu at work and have to update once every other week (at the most,
sometimes every week for a stretch) to install updates.

While my Windows 10 at home hasn't been rebooted more than once a month (at
the most, sometimes not for months at a stretch) over the last few years.

I'm sure a lot of people have their own counterexamples to either case.

I will say the Macs at work and home are the least hassle update-wise, but I
don't use them heavily so I don't know how representative that is.

(shrug emoji), I guess ?

------
ijustwanttovote
Are former employees allowed to share emails like this?

~~~
denzil_correa
The memo comes from court documents as part of the plaintiff's exhibit.

[https://www.computerworld.com/article/2543429/microsoft-
sett...](https://www.computerworld.com/article/2543429/microsoft-settles-
embarrassing-antitrust-suit-in-iowa.html)

------
tiredwired
2004

~~~
orangepanda
Yet more relevant than ever

------
shmerl
Windows always mostly cared about capturing the user with lock-in, not about
usability.

------
netsharc
The way Bill Gates writes in that e-mail doesn't seem as elegant as his
published writings. And he calls it the "Add or remove programs place", what a
non-techie way to describe it.

~~~
kyberias
What "techie way" of describing the place in Windows that is labeled "Add or
remove programs" would you accept?

~~~
throwaway382918
appwiz.cpl ;)

