SOMETHING WENT WRONG

Dick Pountain/ Idealog 237/ 07 April 2014 11:48

I'm writing this column on a new computer on 8th April, which may or may not come to be known as Save Microsoft's Ass Day. For the benefit of any members of exotic tribes, like OSX or Linux users, it's the day on which the major update to Windows 8.1 is being released, the fate of which might determine the fate of Microsoft. I don't have the update myself, and will be waiting to see whether it bricks everyone's PCs before I indulge (in itself a testament to the esteem in which MS is currently held).

But, I hear you thinking, didn't he say just a few columns ago that he may never buy another Windows PC? He did indeed, but then he succumbed to an unforgiveable fit of nostalgia and misplaced loyalty and did precisely that. No sooner had I written that previous column than the hard disk on my trusty 7-year-old Viao began to show symptoms of approaching retirement, and it became wise to put my money where my mouth had been. I shopped around, was sorely tempted to "go commando" with an Asus Transformer, and devilishly tempted by the sheer beauty of Google's hi-def Chromebook, but in the end I stuck with Windows for a combination of pragmatic and sentimental reasons. I'm already beginning to regret it.

The pragmatic reason was that I don't completely trust the cloud. I'm happy enough to exploit it and have done business from foreign shores using only my Nexus 7 and an internet connection, but I want a local copy of all my significant data too. Android can sort of hack that, but it's not what it was designed for (the fact that a file manager is a third-party app gives you the clue). The sentimental reason was the 20 years I've spent fiddling with, tweaking, boosting, wrestling, writing software for, swearing at and rescuing Windows. Hate it, certainly, but it was also great mental exercise on a par with playing chess or planning a guerilla war. So I caved, bought a Lenovo Yoga 2 running Windows 8 and plunged ahead into the quagmire. I resolved to upgrade immediately to Windows 8.1 before getting too settled (ha!) so went to the Store, only to find no upgrade there. A traipse through the forums revealed that it won't be visible on some PCs until you manually apply two other upgrades called K123blah and K123blech. So far so hostile, in fact downright unprofessional, by both MS and Lenovo.

With 8.1 in place I started to investigate the Metrosexual interface and found I didn't mind it so much as many other commentators, since I'm now totally atuned to Android and touch. Tiles make quite a good substitute for the Start Menu I never used, having always preferred desktop icons. Things I do most - mail, calendar, writing, reading, Googling and note-taking - all fit onto the first Start screen, always available via the Windows key as I work in desktop view. But irritation set in once I discovered there aren't any official "Modern Interface" versions of most of the programs I use (like Gmail, Blogger, Flickr, YouTube, iPlayer). You can fiddle this by viewing them in a browser window and making tiles from their URLs, if you don't mind using Internet Explorer, which I do mind. Using Firefox, as I used to, you can't (and in any case it runs too slowly to be usable). Using Chrome, as I now do, it's hidden under a menu that another traipse through the forums revealed. Then one-by-one, those tiled Win8 apps I could find started to break down. It happened to the Facebook app, to a calendar app I paid, admittedly pence, for which no longer logs into Google, and to an icon editor that no longer saves its files. What's really nice though is that to avoid giving anxiety and offence (a cardinal sin in the modern world) software vendors are adopting a new, softer and content-free error message: "Something Went Wrong". No shit Sherlock.

As I edit Jon Honeyball's column each month I quail before his volcanic wrath against the Windows 8 ecosystem, but I now realise Jon has actually been pretty moderate: the quality of apps in the Windows Store is so abysmal it actually makes me nervous, like wandering down the wrong alley in an unfamiliar city and seeing people lurk in dark doorways. Win8 apps now cause me the same unease I feel whenever forced to use a Macintosh, a loss of control and bewilderment at its sheer opacity. Fortunately the Google Apps button in Chrome lets me turn my cute little Yoga into something resembling the Chromebook I almost bought! Windows 8.1 update will need to be *really, really* something...