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In just a few words, Microsoft Edge froze while the engineer was working with virtual machines in the browser, and judging from how fast he proceeded to downloading Google Chrome, this wasn't the first time it happened. Because, you know, sometimes reloading the page or restarting the browser does help, but you can't risk hitting the same error twice, right?
"I love it when demos break," he said. "So while we're talking here, I'm gonna go install Chrome," he continued before he started laughing, with many people in the audience cheering.
"And we're going to not make Google better," he added when unchecking the box to send usage statistics and crash reports to Google, as if this made things less worse. "We're going to do this again, I'm sorry about this. The age of these machines are [sic] wacked down a little bit, there are some things that just don't work."
[ I'm sure there are at least a few Soylentils here who have had things go "pear shaped" during a presentation or demo. Let us hear your horror stories. - Ed]
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Wootery on Thursday November 02 2017, @11:32AM (21 children)
He goes on to say that Edge was in some locked-down mode; it wasn't just that Edge is full of bugs.
The fact that even an expert finds it easier to install Chrome (without any permissions issues) than to reconfigure Edge, is what's really damning here.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Nerdfest on Thursday November 02 2017, @12:01PM (9 children)
It shouldn't freeze up because of some configuration option regardless.
(Score: 5, Touché) by The Mighty Buzzard on Thursday November 02 2017, @12:12PM (5 children)
Normally I'd agree but that would go against decades of official Microsoft policy.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by WizardFusion on Thursday November 02 2017, @12:26PM (4 children)
+1 agree,
-1 sad but true.
(Score: 5, Funny) by Gaaark on Thursday November 02 2017, @12:48PM (3 children)
+11 Hahaha! Serves him right for using MS products in the first place!
;)
--- Please remind me if I haven't been civil to you: I'm channeling MDC. ---Gaaark 2.0 ---
(Score: 2) by requerdanos on Thursday November 02 2017, @06:34PM (2 children)
Why is this modded funny? I have this same thought every time I can't sign in at the Dr.'s office kiosk because instead of the sign-in screen, it is presenting patients the "Windows needs to be updated" or "Sod off, Windows is busy updating" (i.e. "Windows is unsuitable for actual commercial use") screens.
(Score: 2) by Osamabobama on Thursday November 02 2017, @09:56PM (1 child)
It's funny because (from the headline) he was a Microsoft engineer. You see, to imply that a Microsoft engineer shouldn't use Microsoft products goes against our expectations, which makes it funny.
Appended to the end of comments you post. Max: 120 chars.
(Score: 2) by requerdanos on Thursday November 02 2017, @11:24PM
Ah, thanks. I got the funny "Microsoft engineer" connection in the headline originally ("MS Engineer Installs Google Chrome"), but had lost it by the time I got down to the "serves him right" with which by that point my ADD had me simply agreeing....
(Score: 2) by DannyB on Thursday November 02 2017, @01:31PM
I wouldn't complain as loudly if it could freeze up due to mis-configuration. After all, Mrs. Configuration has been known to screw any and all kinds of software.
What is most damnifying is that it is the default configuration that has been borked by porcupines.
When trying to solve a problem don't ask who suffers from the problem, ask who profits from the problem.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday November 02 2017, @04:42PM
Most likely the dashboard is a javascript mess and Edge javascript (or jscript) engine is shait?
(Score: 2) by Wootery on Thursday November 02 2017, @11:27PM
Good point.
(Score: 3, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday November 02 2017, @12:42PM (6 children)
Can we PLEASE stop spreading this "quote" which is pretty much a direct lie. He said "The EDGE on these machines is LOCKED down a little bit."
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Gaaark on Thursday November 02 2017, @12:51PM
Locked down is MS speak for "fuck why do I gotta use this shit!?!?....oh yeah...paycheck..."
Locked down should not mean unusable crash shit.
--- Please remind me if I haven't been civil to you: I'm channeling MDC. ---Gaaark 2.0 ---
(Score: 2) by Wootery on Thursday November 02 2017, @12:59PM (2 children)
Perhaps I'm being oblivious, but isn't that what I just said?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday November 02 2017, @01:06PM (1 child)
I was just directly calling out the mis-quote in the story to reinforce what you were saying. It is fucking retarded that it is still getting spread, it is not even valid English.
(Score: 2) by Wootery on Thursday November 02 2017, @03:16PM
I asked you for clarification. What are you talking about?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday November 02 2017, @02:50PM (1 child)
Did he say "locked-down" or "locked-up"?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday November 02 2017, @06:45PM
It's completely sideways.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Thursday November 02 2017, @03:02PM (1 child)
Just because he's a Microsoft employee doesn't mean that he's an expert, nor a company shill. It's very possible that he, his boss, and even maybe his boss' boss don't really care all that much for their employer's products and they're all just there for the paycheck while it lasts or until something better comes along.
With 120,000 employees, you can't keep them all toeing the company line.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday November 02 2017, @03:45PM
> With 120,000 employees, you can't keep them all toeing the company line.
I wanted to say "you can if you're Apple", but there was that one guy a few days ago who let his daughter take photos of iPhone X...
(Score: 2) by aristarchus on Thursday November 02 2017, @09:15PM (1 child)
So you are saying the problem was a feature, not a bug? Typical.
(Score: 2, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Friday November 03 2017, @07:48AM
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday November 02 2017, @01:07PM
If the story were "Google Engineer Installs Microsoft Edge During Presentation after Chrome Freezes" it would be more surprising.
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday November 02 2017, @01:13PM (5 children)
Still not as funny as when Windows 98 BSOD:ed when Gates was showing it at Comdex'98 after trying to install a plug-n-play scanner.
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday November 02 2017, @02:18PM
In that case, win98 was still in development. That's a little different, but then, I guess it can be said the same of windows 10, except everyone agreed in the eula that it may not work for them.
win98 was expected to work upon install, something MS has managed to get out of via their distribution methods and updating arrangements that users must agree to.
(Score: 3, Touché) by JoeMerchant on Thursday November 02 2017, @03:10PM (3 children)
Still not as funny as Windows 95 not launching until 1996.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday November 02 2017, @07:56PM
You are fake news.
(Score: 3, Informative) by takyon on Thursday November 02 2017, @08:11PM (1 child)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windows_95 [wikipedia.org]
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Thursday November 02 2017, @08:25PM
Thanks for that, fog of memory. I know we didn't write anything to run on it until summer of '96, I don't think we purchased any machines with Window '95 on them until after SP1 came out in February of '96. But, yes indeed, Windows '95 was making grown men cry in late August of 1995.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 2) by letssee on Thursday November 02 2017, @03:14PM (4 children)
And this is just a clever marketing ploy to show their cloud software also works well on chrome?
It wouldn't really surprise me if MS eventually wants to get rid of maintaining windows and concentrate on cloud services and office software. Those are the actual cashcows after all and windows is just a means to an end (selling office). Windows was very useful for keeping their customers locked in as long as it was a near absolute monopoly, but now that so many folks have de facto switched to android/ios as their main OS it might be more important for them to show their software works there too.
Most probably it was just the 'demonstration effect' (shit doesn't work when you are on stage, while working fine on the trial run) but a little speculation never hurt anybody :-)
(Score: 4, Interesting) by martyb on Thursday November 02 2017, @04:44PM (3 children)
I must confess that is a most interesting hypothesis (which I would find amazingly brilliant were it true) but I have my doubts.
To put a reverse spin on Hanlon's Razor [wikipedia.org]:
I would offer for consideration:
Wit is intellect, dancing.
(Score: 2) by tibman on Friday November 03 2017, @02:35AM (1 child)
There are some shenanigans going on. More and more of their webstack is running in linux. DotNetCore, Visual Studio Code, Kestrel web server, MS SQL, Roslyn compiler (think C#). I think you can host just about everything in linux now. Development still seems partially stuck in windows but there are a lot more cli tools instead of ui. I'm seeing some weird shit in the ms dev world right now.
SN won't survive on lurkers alone. Write comments.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday November 03 2017, @07:59AM
Nowadays they've stopped making usable GUIs and started telling people to use PowerShell[1].
Sounds like the Linux bunch have taken over... ;)
The Windows 9x UI was actually quite an improvement over previous stuff. Nowadays you need stuff like Classic Shell to make the newer versions of Windows tolerable.
Maybe the Microsoft people with a clue have cashed out and retired/left or moved to Microsoft Research to do more interesting stuff.
[1] Having to use the shell is fine if you want to configure many machines or do something esoteric, but there should be a UI for something not so obscure that you'd do for one machine. I've forgotten what it was though :). I do remember that even a few years ago they did something like that with IIS configuration backups/restore:
Old had a GUI and was discoverable:
https://www.serverintellect.com/support/iis/how-do-i-backup-my-iis-6-configuration/ [serverintellect.com]
https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc732543(v=ws.11).aspx [microsoft.com]
Newer was CLI and wasn't as discoverable:
https://blogs.iis.net/bills/how-to-backup-restore-iis7-configuration [iis.net]
(they did add a GUI later: https://www.iis.net/downloads/community/2009/07/iis7-backup-restore-ui [iis.net] )
(Score: 2) by letssee on Wednesday November 08 2017, @07:00PM
You're probably right. I was just intrigued by the possibility :-)