Come Back Clippy

by Paul Grimsley

The Computer That Helps Only Itself

It sometimes takes a lot to get a computer set up just right, so that the whole way it works and displays matches your work-flow, and adds to the production that you need to pull off, rather than hindering it. So when an update screws with your settings I think you are allowed to be a little angry.

Windows 10 update horror stories are not an uncommon thing, and I have had a few myself. Today is the latest in the chain — after the update my driver that allows for multiple screens decided to stop working and I am being forced to operate with one screen. Some people may be pulling out their tiny violins right now and labelling it as a First World Problem, but this really messes with the functionality of my workspace, where I need to see multiple things at once.

For instance, when editing, I need to see the suggested changes, the live page, and the back-end where I am doing the editing. This is how I maintain accuracy and speed during the editing process. Today? No, won’t work. I can’t roll back the driver, update it, or do anything that seems to work. There is a point when I am booting up that all 3 screens flicker alive at the right resolution, then something happens and they all turn off. Something happened, right?

Don’t get me wrong — Clippy was a royal pain in the behind, but the thing is he was involved in a dialogue with you, and it was evidence that Microsoft didn’t think they knew what you wanted better than you did. Now, you wake up to an update and you don’t know what the hell is going to happen. It has gone beyond the realm of weird error codes that you have to travel to Mordor to discover the meaning of, into barely being able to dig into the update history of your own machine to find out what the hell happened to it.

It is interesting that when Windows 10 launched it was being sold as a service rather than a product — a thing that would remain fluid and constantly updating, rather than something fixed. The question is, what dictates the changes? Is there some group of masochistic Windows 10 users who like it when things break? I can’t imagine some of the changes are driven by a survey of any kind, and I find it hard to comprehend releases into the current market that don’t want to play nice with other products. Microsoft don’t even supply replacements for some of the things they break.

There was something transparent about Clippy — Cortana and her operating system seem to be prone to stabbing me in the back at the most inopportune moments. I don’t want surprises — what I need is improvements that come along with at least a cursory consultation on whether I want them, or even consider them improvements. I own my computer, and the content on it — I haven’t read the EULA, but perhaps I promised Cortana my first born, but in exchange for what? My co-workers laughing at me for installing Windows 10, and losing time to trying to fix problems my system won’t even recognize? How can I have two duplicate screens yet Windows won’t recognize that there is another monitor. Makes little sense, right? Wordpress rarely break things when they update, and I can think of others that release things, but seem to test them more rigorously beforehand. Unless, of course, Microsoft’s intent is damage. If so, well done.

It appears you are trying to diss Windows 10, may I help?

Yes, Clippy, you may.