Various grouches I've had / got with software include ..
1) 20 + years ago - I don't remember when, Microsoft was reputed to have
stolen the code for its audio player of the time from a company called (IIRC)
'Real Audio'. It was said than the Real Audio had borrowed $US 80 million- a
considerable sum at that time - to do the R & D for this program, and had
not got far down the track of earning from its creation.
It was said that Real Audio went bust because they could not afford to take
the giant Microsoft to court to get recompense, and were no longer getting
income from what they had made because Microsoft was providing their
player to all and sundry for no charge.
On the assumption that this story was correct, I looked at MS with a
jaundiced eye from that time.
2) This computer that I am writing on came with these MS programs
installed: Word, Excel, Powerpoint - and I forget what else.
While I was confined to dial-up I turned off the automatic MS updates
because they took far too long and interrupted what else I was trying to do.
When I first got broadband I turned updates on again.
After a few weeks' time I found that I could no longer use Word, Excel and
Powerpoint unless I inserted the relevant CD - which I did not have.
It could well be that these programs were shared with my computer from the
CDs of friends of the then owner. I don't know. But it seems to me that
through the Updates "service". MS has checked installations on my
computer and compared them with the MS database of client
computers/installed programs, and found a discrepancy.
Until recently, when I acquired a Student version, I could no longer use
these programs for writing and editing.
And the damned Student version has releases of these programs which are
elaborate and complicated far beyond my needs. The older simpler versions
were better for me.
3) Fairly recently I installed VLC video player.This is really handy because it
turns out that it can play MS Macromedia Flash video, and for some reason
I don't understand, Flash does not run on my machine unless it is
commanded to play an online video. I do save many videos on my machine.
However, for some programs such as MP4, and wmv programs, I need to
run wmplayer.exe. It gives much better sound.
Since I installed VLC, something prevents me from instructing my machine
to make wmplayer.exe the program of choice. A real nuisance.
To get wmplayer to play these saved programs, I have first to open it, then
get a file list using windows explorer ( always on my desktop - my file
management program of choice) the find and drag the file name to the
appropriate place in the wmplayer interface ...
A real PITB
Brian Swale
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