Feb 19 2004
Trying to Trick the Penguin..
I don’t know how or why, but over the past few weeks I’ve been the target of some serious Microsoft swag.
About 10 days ago I got a ‘compilmentary’ copy of MS Office 2003 professional edition out of the blue (Retail value: $499.00) sent to me in the mail. Of course, when I tried to install it on Jenny’s Win98 computer at home, an error dialog popped up and informed me, “You need to be running a newer version of Microsoft Windows to use this software.”.
Boy, it’s a good thing Microsoft isn’t abusing it’s monopoly position in any way shape or form there!
I felt like this new copy of Office 2003 was embarrassed to even have it’s installer be executed on such an old operating system. Sticking it’s nose up at me like it was one of the “Queer Eye for a Straight Guy” boys that was almost forced to !GASP! wear a turtleneck sweater out in public from last season’s Christian Dior collection. How embarassing.
So today I got another mailer, this time hawking a free copy of Microsoft Windows Server 2003. (Retail value: $1000.) I can’t for the life of me figure out why Microsoft is sending me all this expensive software for free. Maybe when I tried to install Office 2003, it detected the Windows 98 operating system and sent an S.O.S back to Microsoft headquarters. “ALERT ALERT! Customer #8s88s8991010001-98se is running a perfectly stable version of Windows that does everything they need! Send reinforcements and alert Microsoft Lackey #1000-Mike-Dell of pending hardware upgrades!”
Or maybe they’re trying to round up us un-ruley and happy penguins, like rodeo organizers prospecting broncos for the upcoming show, locking us in cages and riding our angry asses all the way to the bank.
Dan,
You may be right, we were the target of the same “attack” — free version of MS Office 2003!. It makes a fine frisbee what with the flashy cd label and all.
-joe
What is stable Windows 98?
Ya, 98 is pretty stable for what we use our windows computers for..
you mean, solitaire? :]