In case this thread gets picked up by a search engine and some future person is wondering the same thing, there is a port of winevdm[1] to 64-bit Windows that will let you run 16-bit programs.

[1] https://github.com/otya128/winevdm

Hi slater! I'm sltr. Which is the same name but without vowels.

That's probably a huge underestimation. But even if it's in hundreds of dollars, it's still effectively zero for a large company.

They would also tell you to reboot and make sure Windows Defender was enabled

As can be seen, if they can't manage something like this that applies equally to Windows 10, about all you can do is work around it or whine about it.

I've recently found information about Windows Vista that enabled more reliable printing in the very latest Windows 11 there is.

It always seems like such sad behavior when people make an effort to remove worthwhile material when there is so much useless waste that is not even addressed.

His blog does not meet the quota for AI hype and therefore has to be retired, to bring corporate messaging in line with the state-of-the art AI paradigms

It’s quite likely that in a website redesign after Raymond Chen retires, his blog will be retired as well.

That's an accomplishment in Progressbar95.

  > If you can't responsibly operate a business past a certain scale, you shouldn't be allowed to continue growth. I don't know what that looks like, legally speaking

A legal solution is not the correct solution to that problem. The classic answer to this question in Western societies is that the market will produce a better alternative.

For what it's worth, I'm typing this on my Debian desktop. In my opinion, a far better solution.

  > better means reaching a higher market saturation

  > The market has failed.

Competition. Go build a better product.

> We need a scale reform for modern businesses - platforms and companies like Microsoft are logistically incapable of providing good service to their customers, or moderating hundreds of millions or even billions of users, effectively separating these companies from all the harm they cause.

And here is where "you have to spend X number of days a year doing CS" should be a requirement for every engineer, dev, product manger, and executive.

I do not think you understand the level of abject stupidity that customers are capable of. I do not think you understand how likely customers are to do dumb things and blame the company.

Companies who provide support charge more for their products to pay for it. How much? Well how many people break things and then ask for refunds. The company pays for those people by marking up all the other products.

IN any organization: first friend outside your team should be in accounting. The second should be in customer service. These are the most valuable resources you will have regarding the tempo of what is going on inside your organization. They are the front line and the oracles of "truth" (the books dont lie, unless your Enron' and then you have bigger problems).

The market has solutions to this, but they are mostly for businesses. E.g. You can purchase "support" either from Microsoft, or other third parties that will then deal with MS for you if they can't fix it themselves. And whatever software you buy also has it's own support terms too. (I've had good experiences with paid AWS support under both models.)

On the flip side: if you're an individual, you're at a poker table with a $50 chip—you don't have leverage—you either just take the bet or don't. So you're basically forced to research the laptop/hardware/software you intend to run to verify it's a happy path, or it at least has vendors (or a local PC store) that will help you if something breaks, and hope for the best.

So I guess the question is, would people be willing to pay for good support? Would people even pay for an OS anymore?

I wonder if they will purposely train/instruct chatbot help agents to be a bit less helpful, to mimic the friction and frustration that phone trees and such create.

Or perhaps they'll train them to be cheerfully helpful, but to just dump all the feedback in a virtual circular file. If so, would the chatbot admit this is what happens if the user asked them?

> The point isn't to resolve user problems, it's to reduce the number of people taking up the time of support agents. Letting people vent in a pseudo-official channel accomplishes that. Whenever something gets resolved that was being fixed anyway, because the "industry partners", enterprise and high level customers wanted it, they can mark an issue as resolved, and generate the appearance of responsive service.

Yep. It's like Whitehouse "petitions". Time-wasting tarpits for the unaware.

> It's like standing up complex automated phone menus, you're going to frustrate a certain number of callers into giving up, and reduce the overall number of customers you have to interact with.

The point of pointless troubleshooting procedures, long forms, long wait times, denials, and inconvenience is to monetize misery and create a maximally-negative conversion funnel. Ask any UnitedHealth or airline CEO.

It actually sounded like they weren't even paying attention to feedback from average users who happened to recognize them at a conf. Instead it sounded like they were focused on feedback from people who work at other bigco's.

I get your point, I do. Then again, a lot can be said about the "PR value" of letting what could be miniscule (by comparison) costs of serving static hypertext, be saved in the eyes of "potential" customers. It's pennies on the dollar and I am fairly sure Microsoft would get a lot more love from the "neckbeards" who need the old-school stuff and not the toys they insist on dangling in front of our faces (which they are famous for). Remember when Microsoft tried to get everyone away from Win32 by force-feeding everyone WinRT, writing "deprecated" over the former everywhere they could on their site(s), only to witness such a shit-storm of complaint and fury from people who actually rightfully knew Win32 was, for all its faults, one of the better things Microsoft has given us (in context of Windows programming, that is)?

Speaking of Win32 but not only that, I too have started being more cautious and pedantic about user manuals and other "paraphernalia" I have to rely on, for instance Win32 API documentation which is getting more scarce to find in sufficient volume and specifically _detail_. So I download and archive it (with implied off-site backup, which I have for most of my "home directory" stuff) -- I agree the only way to guarantee access is to, well, obtain a copy of the document...

In the department of literal jokes department: In high school, I discovered that I could flip the power switch of an PS/2 model 25 off and on fast enough such that the capacitors in the linear supply had enough charge to keep the system from rebooting.

Also the DOS DOS of COPY CON CLOCK$.