Monday, June 9, 2008

Damn Microsoft!

I am the unofficial IT person for the irrigation company that I work for. Never mind, that I am not an IT person and have had absolutely no training. The only knowledge I have is self-learned, mainly through the tried and true method of "just do it" and if that doesn't work, "try something else".

Well, we use this program called Groove. It allows us to form our own little company network, even though we work in different states. As long as our files are saved on Groove, someone, say in Florida, can access the file, change it and then save it back to Groove where I, in Tennessee, can then open the file and see their changes. It works great for our company.

That is, it used to work great for our company. A couple of years ago, Microsoft saw what a great piece of software it was and they purchased it. When that happened, I knew it was going to be trouble.

The shit finally hit the fan. It all started when one of our supervisor's computer died. So I was assigned the task of getting a new one for him. So I went computer shopping and found a pretty sweet one for a very reasonable price. So I came home and installed Groove. Well, wouldn't you know - it won't run on Vista!

So I go and buy the new Groove. And, wouldn't you know - it will not "groove" with anyone running the old version of Groove. I have spent the last couple of days trying to find a way to make them play nice. But it's a no go!

And you can't even call Microsoft to ask a question about a brand new piece of software without paying $$. That just really pisses me off. I just paid a couple hundred dollars for the software and I can't even call and ask a question about it without paying another hundred!

So now we all have to upgrade to the new Groove. Now I don't mind paying for software but to force me to upgrade all the software in our company is absolutely ridiculous!!

Thanks a lot, Mr. Gates!! I'd like to take your software and put it where the sun don't shine!!!

1 comment:

Donna Reed In Blue Jeans said...

What's worse is that when you do decide to pay to call the help line, you get someone in India who's accent is so thick you can't understand what the hell he/she is saying and have to keep saying, "I'm so sorry, I didn't get that. Can you please repeat what you just said?" I'm all for outsourcing and helping other nations and all, but when my frustration level is at it's highest and I have to pay for help, I would like someone that I can reasonably understand. You know? (I hope that doesn't make me sound like a bigot. Because I'm not.)

Good luck Lori, my mom has Vista and hates it.