Microsoft must have thought we'd all be on Vista by now

Find out how many HP (HP) AMD (AMD)-based XP PCs there are in the world, multiply by $100 and deduct the result from Microsoft (MSFT) profits over the next four quarters. It's probably peanuts but the rollout of Windows XP Service Pack 3 (SP3) is another black eye for Microsoft quality control and all-around poor planning for customer service and support.

It's probably not as bad as the "Vista-enabled PC" upgrade program in 2007. That Microsoft effort lead to everyone wanting to go back to XP because Vista's performance was so bad, even on so-called Vista-enabled PCs, after waiting months for their promised Vista upgrades. During the Vista-enabled scenario, luckily, my 6-year-old grandson Owen immediately complained that there was no Pinball on Vista. So I quickly returned to XP. No harm/no foul for me but I think there are even lawsuits ongoing on that issue.

So this year it's a poor release of XP SP3. The Microsoft master plan probably said that we all had Vista by now. Actually when I read Greg Keizer's article in PCWorld on May 9 I was happy two ways.

-- First I thought I had screwed up the SP3 download/upgrade somehow only to find that it affected at least all HP AMD-based PCs like mine. And maybe any AMD-based PC.
-- Second, I was happy that I had turned off Windows Automatic Update when I bought the PC (I don't like being that connected with anyone, not just Redmond).

Again, I was able to restore to SP2 pretty easily. But I don't know if the average home PC user would have figured it out. Especially if they had no idea the download had happended overnight because of Windows Automatic Update. Many users of my type PC found their home PC endlessly trying to reboot with probably no idea that Microsoft had automatically updated them to SP3 over nite, putting them in the repetitive loop.

I just left a message on the Microsoft support line, which is promising free SP3 support until April of 2009 (although it takes a little work to find this page so Microsoft may save a few dollars in support costs). I expected that they would inform me when a new version of the upgrade was available to download (although there was no apparent way to let Windows Update know that I had removed SP3 from my system). Instead Microsoft sent me the same steps that Jesper Johansson had posted to his blog on Thursday May 8. I don't see a lot of home PC users easily working their way through this set of instructions (especially since Microsoft's version was missing a few steps).

So see you this weekend Owen. Pinball is up and running again.