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Microsoft tastes the unexpected consequences of tariffs on time

3 months 1 week ago
Throw a spanner in the works, best get good at fixing things. Now, where did you put that spanner?

Opinion  Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity. This works well in sane times, less so when "but it's both" is the default. Apply it to Microsoft's decision to make bug reports include not only a working example but a video of the same, and the meter oscillates wildly. What were they thinking? What did they expect?…

Rupert Goodwins

Microsoft's Many Outlooks Are Confusing Users

3 months 1 week ago
The Register's Richard Speed reports: Baffled by the plethora of Outlook options out there? You aren't alone. Microsoft veteran Scott Hanselman posted a list of some more variants that could be used to do the same thing. It's a problem common to several Microsoft products. A file needs to be opened, but which app should be used? Should it be Outlook New, or Outlook (New)? With tongue firmly in cheek, Hanselman listed some more options: Outlook (Zero Sugar), Outlook (Caffeine Free), and so on. Hanselman, Developer Community veep at Microsoft, also included Outlook '95, although to our mind the peak came with the version of Outlook in Office 97. A happier, more trusting time when security was less important. While users can create multiple Outlook profiles to store email account details and data locations, Hanselman's post on Bluesky highlights an issue facing many users of Microsoft's software: which incarnation of the application to use. Teams users often find themselves presented with a variety of applications -- Microsoft Teams and Microsoft Teams (Personal), for example, can often appear side by side in the system tray. [...] There is a cautionary tale about what happened when a soft drinks company tried to replace a well-liked product with a "new" version and renamed the previous preferred version as "classic." The list posted by Hanselman -- who is also notable for tips on managing Microsoft's personal information manager -- is amusing, but also highlights the perils of having multiple, similarly functioning options to do the same thing, and the potential for confusing users.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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