Microsoft Software Quality: Word Might Stop Working. No Big Deal

December 20, 2022

I read a short item which underscores my doubts about Microsoft’s quality methods. l have questions about security issues in Microsoft’s enterprise and cloud products and services. But those are mostly “new” and the Big Hope for future revenues. Perhaps games will arrive to make the Softies buy Teslas and beef up their retirement accounts, just not yet.

Microsoft Confirms Taskbar Bugs, Broken File Explorer, and App Issues in Windows 10” reports:

If you use Windows 10, you might experience the following symptoms:

  • ?The Weather or News and Interests widget or icons flickers on the Windows taskbar
  • ?The Windows taskbar stops responding
  • ?Windows Explorer stops responding
  • ?Applications including Microsoft Word or Excel might stop responding if they are open when the issue occurs

The weather and news are no big loss in my opinion. Microsoft believes that Windows 10 users want weather and news despite the mobile phone revolution. (Remember Microsoft and its play to create a mobile phone? Yeah, that was spun as fail early and fail fast. I think of that initiative as a basic fail, not a fast or early fail. Plain old fail.)

The Taskbar and file manager are slightly more interesting. A number of routine functions go south for some lucky Windows 10 users.

But the zinger fail is that Microsoft Word or Excel die. Now that’s just what’s needed to make the day of a person who is working on a report at a so-so consulting firm like one of the blue-chip outfits in Manhattan, a newbie at a big law firm with former government officials waiting for the worker bees to deliver a document for the bushy eyebrow set to review, or a Wall Street type modifying a model to make his, her, thems partners lots of money.

These happy users are supposed to be able to handle stress and pressure.

I wonder if Microsoft executives have been in a consulting firm, law firm, or financial services company when a must have app stops responding. Probably not because these wizards are working on improving Microsoft’s quality control processes. Could Redmond’s approach to quality be blamed on an intern, a contractor, or a part time worker? My hunch is that getting blamed is not a component of the top dogs’ job description.

Stephen E Arnold, December 20, 2022

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