I FEEL YOUR PAIN, VOLUME ONE

I have not understood the reasons for the anger that so many geeks in the various web communities harbor toward Microsoft, an anger that seems to saturate their conversations almost everywhere. It is clear to me that my life is a hell of a lot better with Microsoft than it ever would have been without them. I use Word Perfect, but mainly because I started my computer use before Microsoft Word existed and way back then Word Perfect was far and away the best program out there. But that was then and this is now, and because more and more people are using Microsoft Word to communicate on the web thus creating documents that can only be read by Microsoft products (or perhaps later versions of Word Perfect), I decided to switch to Microsoft Word (MW). First, for those of you who are using Word Perfect because of its simplicity as well as its quality, do not switch----reasons to follow. Anyway, I bought the disc and loaded the product.

Now the puzzlement began

There is no documentation for MW whatsoever, either in the package nor on the disc itself. I went to various Microsoft sites on line and found they didn’t do jack for their customers other than try and switch you to their 2007 product line. The complexities of MW are there for you to figure out on your own. For those of you unfamiliar with MW, switching to it from simpler programs is like moving from a single engine Piper Cub to a supersonic jet fighter without having any instruction. The possibilities MW offers its users are nearly endless but I guarantee you that no one anywhere would ever have use for more than fifty percent of its potential; yet without documentation you can never know what all of the possibilities are, and for $214 plus tax I Goddam well want to learn exactly what I bought. But such is not to be.

Ta Daaa-----then, I discovered this little thing somewhere on a Microsoft web site that offers a sixty day free trial of the entire Office Suite (there really is a God) and clearly implied within the offer was training in how to use the stuff. Naturally I’m a mooch for free shit so I downloaded it….and there even more fun begins.

There are instructions-----on how to register the product so that the trial can start complete with other easy instructions on how to install my 60 day free trial complete with product “codes” that are necessary to register the product. The only thing is, the dropdown box Microsoft says will be right in front of my eyes so I can register never appears. Not only that, the icon for the suite cannot be found anywhere on my desktop nor within Microsoft files. A search through my hard drives shows that the Suite is there somewhere, but when I clicked on said icon nothing happened. I did manage to find and load the new Express mail program but quickly discovered the new Express doesn’t do what I need the most so I discontinued use of it within a day. So here I sit with a sixty day trial I do not know how to use and cannot find on my computer plus a completely undocumented program for which I paid $214. Am I pissed? You’re fucking A I’m pissed. I feel your pain.