Oh, Bother - or - when your BP become 150/110

 

Forward and Forewarned, Apple users, I know you love your system. But crowing about how flawless it is isn't going to make me feel better.  Unless you plan on buying me a factory-new Apple desktop, keep you IOS to yourself. Kisses.

Well, it was too good to last. 

After a year of running flawlessly, a Microsoft Update (the one for March 2023) destroyed my Windows 11 operating system. 

Cookie doesn't visit sites that he shouldn't, doesn't open emails from people he doesn't know and doesn't click on links, or run programs he shouldn't.  And cookie keeps his antivirus updated and runs frequently. 

But that update from Microsoft brought down my desktop. Thank our Lord in Heaven, Jesus Christ Almighty, but Cookie had the brains to install a secondary drive to keep all his doc and photos on. So the angels sang out "For verily, you followed our instruction, all is well on that front."

Working with Dell Support was a dream. They couldn't have been nicer, and it was worth the extra money when I bought the system. They even call you back to make sure everything is copacetic. 

BUT what Cookie didn't learn is when you buy a PC from Dell and pay for Office Home and Student to come preloaded, they do not send you the activation code. 

How can this be? Trust me, "It be" because everything they do is handled on a peer network connection with Microsoft or some such other malarky, but they don't send it.

Which means, you, the consumer, has to go back to Microsoft and have them activate the Office Suite. 

And guess what that means? 

Sisyphus has a better chance of rolling that rock up that mountain than you have in reaching anyone, in any department that can help you.  Why? Because there is no such thing as Microsoft Support, except online, and the links to get to that are better hidden than the mystery of life itself. 

The bottom line is this - once you buy something from them, you are dead to them.  

Now think about this.  Money doesn't grow on trees where Cookie dwells. 

This of course raised Cookie's stress, anxiety, and blood pressure to dangerous heights.  Seriously, trying to get this resolved through Microsoft literally made me throw up. 

If you follow the online links to get help, you either reach a dead end, a circular link, or a telephone number that tells you all support has moved online.  In other words, there is no honest way for a law-abiding, license-owning person to resolve this.  You can reach a human through chat, but they want to sell you Office 365, which gets expensive at $100/year.  And if your internet connection goes down? You are shit out of luck.

My only option was to buy a second copy of Office.  Bad enough I paid $150 when I bought the computer, but now I was shelling it out a second time.  But this time I have the activation key. 

And Cookie blames this Microsoft's CEO, Satya Nadella, who is a fuckwit. 

This is the same fuckwit who crowed about Bing having the first AI Engine available to the masses.  The same fuckwit who disappeared when that AI Engine started developing personality problems and began issuing all sorts of troubling answers. 

At least with Bill Gates, Microsoft functioned like a normal evil empire, but under Nadella they issued Widows 11 will all sorts of retrograde engineering that the ability to control the operating system meant you couldn't customize even the basic toolbar. Worse still, once you buy it, there is STILL no refund, no support. 

So now, and a week after the failure, I am just getting up to speed. 

And oh, yeah, tonight I am eating meatloaf in honor of Nadella.

UPDATE: The meatloaf was delicious!  So were the mashed potatoes and gravy.