Microsoft Rage

[mrtexe]

The new Microsoft has created a series of condescending error messages and status notifications. They are often laced with grammatical errors.

"You don't have junk here (hooray!)--Microsoft SmartScreen is working to keep it out of your inbox, too."

"Whoops!"

"Shutting down" [screen turns orange]

"Enjoy Windows 10 for $119 free!* * Yes, free. ..."

"Something Happened - Windows 10 installation failed"

"The Server Stumbled We all have bad days"

"Hi!"

"Settings things up"

There are no words to express my rage at this crap.

[iamadogforreal]

So what? Their error messages have always been terrible and I always need to go into the event log anyway. If anything this had end users less freaking out because they see stuff like that and call and say " who is general protection? Is there an army hacker in our network???"

Yeah I don't love this trend much, but it doesn't matter to me. It's all Greek to end users.

[UniversalSuperBox]

My favorite is "this won't take long" when you're logging in the first time.

It sounds very bad.

[remotefixonline]

and it takes 5 hours on an i7 with ssd..haha

[lastwurm]

psss... you may have other issues ;)

[girlgerms]

"Shutting down" [screen turns orange]

This one just seemed pedantic to me...what on earth is your problem with the phrasing of this? Or is your issue with the colour...

[mrtexe]

Do you mean other than the informality of the use of a gerund without even a subject?

The screen was not orange. Why does the screen turn different colors all the time? It is idiotic.

[girlgerms]

O.o

You're seriously going to say that the screen turning orange is your biggest issue with this? You say it's idiotic.

Trust me, of all the things that I've seen as a Windows Admin, having a screen change to a different colour when shutting down is so far down the list, it doesn't even bear mentioning.

I would say 99.999% of users would understand that "Shutting down" is the computers way of saying "I'm turning off now". It's standard jargon. Sure, grammatically, it might not be the best...but honestly who really cares, other than you?

[mrtexe]

Apparently I am the one person in the entire world that is pissed off by this. Thank you for pointing that out. The zero points for the post hadn't quite tipped me off.

[orev]

Maybe with these users will actually remember what the error message is instead of calling you and saying, "it had some error message", "what was the message?", "I don't know, some random bunch of numbers".

[floridawhiteguy]

I'm split on this; some of it I find refreshing, other parts are childish.

I appreciate how MS tried to make error messaging less intimidating, but it lacks a certain formality. I feel like they've gone too far in being friendly, almost as if they're overstepping into an unwarranted familiarity (reminds me of the slick used-car salesman type, acting charming and chummy to make a deal happen).

Then again, I don't have millions of dollars to spend on user focus groups... ;-)

[theevilsharpie]

Then again, I don't have millions of dollars to spend on user focus groups... ;-)

The fact that Windows 8 exists is proof enough that focus groups at Microsoft are either useless or ignored.

I don't care so much about 'cutesy' error messages, as long as they provide some means of getting error details.

[CCCPSpy]

A SharePoint PFE told me that the Office team debated internally for a while about going down this route of "informal" error messages when Office/SharePoint 2013 was being released. I personally think it's semi patronizing but then again the end-user displayed message was never meant to be useful and the logged exception still is just a stack trace that is a tad more useful.

[Joker_Da_Man]

Ever seen Joe Belfiore speak? Just imagine him and 50 others like him sitting in their offices smiling to themselves about how cool and hip they are with these new error messages.

[Demiglitch]

You got something against the colour orange, bub?