O Microsoft, Microsoft! wherefore art thou Microsoft?

This is an old story, that I decided to share with you; It happened in the year of our lord 1998-1999; when Windows 98 was first introduced to an unsuspecting public.

During that period, I used to work at the IT department of a small company. dealing with hardware and software support. The Big Boss; bought the Microsoft BS and decided to upgrade the whole operation to the all new, shiny, better, OS (Windows 98). We did try that on a machine for few months, and we were very impressed.

[DAY 1] To minimise the hassle, we decided to update the machines during the Christmas Break.

We were upgrading 12 machines from Windows 95. Prepared for the worst; we did an iOmega ZIP backup of all machines; and followed the instructions to the letter.

Sadly, we still ended up with 10 non functioning machines; we lost all the data; and in-spite of all our efforts we just couldn't restore things back to normal. So after hours and hours of trying; we just gave up on the upgrade idea and just decided to reinstall windows 98 from scratch.

And even the two machines that did upgrade, developed some peculiarly weird and wonderful interface issues..

The first machine had an infinite loop folder problem. When you open a folder, the only thing you see inside is an exact copy of the same folder, and when you open this, the same happens. So you end up with the same folder, within the same folder, within the same folder, within the same folder, Ad infinitum....

As for the second machine, the language was ascii, but not as we know it, it was not English, it was not Hungarian, it was not Spanish, it was not anything - It looked like everything within the OS had been, randomly, bit shifted somehow, so if you type "AAAAAA" you would get something like "LB>AW#"...

So we scrapped these and decided to reinstall Windows 98 from scratch, on all 12 machines.

[DAY 2] Bushy tailed and bright eyed, we started the day early. And started to install the machines, you must remember that the machines during that period were fairly slow, compared to todays effort. So each machine took around 2 hours to set up, and then there was the matter of  trying to find drivers for these machines and existing hardware (printers, scanners, and even the iOmega Zip drive, modems, network cards).

We nearly did all the machines and were fairly pleased. We thought that Day 3 would do it, a quick mop up and restore of important bits of data, and set up of few minor drivers.

[DAY 3] We get there, all empowered by the events and successes of the previous day. We start downloading drivers, with our state of the art, brand spanking new, 36.6K modem; unbeknown to us, and because of the way networking was implemented on Windows 98, we managed to infect the entire Network with possibly one of the earliest viruses known to man. What a bastard...

[DAY 4] Remove all Machines from the network, re-install each machine independently,download the drivers for each, do not connect to the network till the last minute, and then reinfect the entire network again..

[DAY 5] Same as day 4, but this time we got an infectious BSOD on first boot, and when we connect the network, it seemed to travel across all the nodes and machines...

[DAY 6] Everybody was feeling fairly shit; the Big Boss decided to complain to Microsoft. He said "Get me their Telephone number, I'm gonna tell them what I really think". In those days, the internet was not like now; the search was very limited, and not many websites were about.

So the Big Boss grabs the phone and rings Directory Enquiries, the conversation goes like that:

[Man on Line] Directory Enquiries, how may I help you.

[Big Boss] I'm looking for the number for Microsoft.

[Man on Line] Which Town.

[Big Boss] I don't know, try London (and he turns to us, saying "Everybody is in Bloody London").

[Man on Line] This is your number Sir, XXXX XXXX XXXX - Have a nice day, or something to that effect.

[Big Boss] Thank you.

Big Boss, fuming, dials the number and await an answer.60 or so seconds pass..

[Man on Line] Hi John,

[Big Boss] Its not John, I'm a customer..

[Man on Line] Sorry about that, the firm is Closed for the Holidays, can you ring us back in the New Year.

[Big Boss] THE NEW F###ING YEAR, I GIVE YOU A BLOODY NEW YEAR.

[Man on Line] I was just collecting some things from the office. I don't even deal with customers, I'm sure somebody would help you if you could ring back after.....

[Big Boss] YOU TRY AND TELL ME THAT, ONE OF THE BIGGEST COMPANIES IN THE WORLD, CAN'T LOOK AFTER ITS CUSTOMERS. AFTER ALL THE MONEY THAT I'VE SPENT WITH YOU, I STILL CAN'T GET ANY SUPPORT WHEN I NEED IT. THIS IS NO WAY TO TREAT YOUR CUSTOMERS OR TO RUN A BUSINESS - I'M GOING TO CONTACT THE MEDIA, NEWSPAPERS, TV, I'M REALLY, REALLY NOT HAPPY ABOUT THE WHOLE SITUATION AND DEFINITELY NOT HAPPY WITH THE CUSTOMER SERVICE.....BLAH, BLAH, BLAH...

The Big Boss went on and on and on, rambling, at the hapless man, for what seemed like an eternity, but it was more like 30 minutes. The poor man could not get a word in. And the Big Boss demanding to speak to his supervisor, if not then the manager or even Bill Gates, he threatened to go to their house if necessary, to sort out this mess. And demanded the number for the American HQ.

[Man on Line] There is no American HQ, this is it - we are just a small outfit with one outlet.

[Big Boss] No American HQ, but, but, but, you are Microsoft?

[Man on Line] No, we are Microshit of Wimbledon - (I changed the name to protect the innocent, I bet they regretted the day they picked a name so similar to Microsoft).

[Big Boss] (Penny Dropping Slowly), Sorry about that mate, I thought you were working for Microsoft. We've just had all our system trashed by that F###ING NEW OPERATING SYSTEM - What a lot of Crap.

Myself, I was rolling out with laughter on the office floor, and thinking, what a poor man.

A few days later, we managed to trace the problem to a scanner that was attached to one of the machines during installation. This might sound easy nowadays, however, then, we had to take every ISA & PCI card, out of every machine, and add these cards one at a time, till we got to the offending part.. We had cards for everything, Modems, Network, Ide, I/O, VGA, you name it, we had it... What a pain in the butt. And till this day, when I see my old Boss, I can't help mentioning this story...