Is Big Brother Watching Me?

After spending the second day with the new Sony with Vista Business Edition, I have decided Microsoft is keeping an eye on me; and I don't like it. On Friday and early Saturday morning I connected my Seagate external disk drive to the IEEE 1394 port on the Sony. Before doing that I had searched the Vista Help for instructions and found none. I used the same procedure that I had used with XP. After I did that I found the "Safely Remove Hardware" icon and chose to remove the IEEE 1394 device. Both times it worked without problem. Shortly after I turned the new pc on for the first time updates from Microsoft were downloaded and installed. I thought I was all caught up with the updates until the second Tuesday in April. Much to my surprise when I attempted to put the pc in hibernation a message popped up that said it was installing updates and not to turn off the computer. I waited. The pc powered off by itself. I turned it back on and it came up with a message that said it was configuring updates. I went to the Windows Update History and found that a patch for the IEEE 1394 port when using an external hard drive had been installed.

 

Later in the afternoon I again attached the hard drive. This time when I was ready to dismount the drive, a completely different window popped up. It listed my device. I clicked on it and second window opened that said it would attempt to dismount the drive. By now I was scared. What would I do if I could not dismount the drive? Finally another window opened and said it was safe to remove the drive. I know Microsoft had detected that I had an external drive and sent a very customized patch to me.

 

Later in the afternoon I encountered more Microsoft intrusion into my life. I could not find any games on my computer. The old familiar solitaire game was no where to be found. I had read that Microsoft jazzed up solitaire for Vista, and I wanted to see it. Finally I Googled Vista Business Edition Games. There were a number of articles. One gave a step-by-step procedure for enabling the games on Vista Business Edition. Microsoft has hidden them because their corporate clients to do want their employees wasting time playing games. I am a retiree. I paid for this computer with my own money. If I want to waste the remainder of my life playing solitaire, it is my business.

 

I loaded up solitaire and again I became frustrated with Microsoft. The new version has new sounds like cards are being dealt. I am still having a little trouble using the touchpad. I slipped and attempted to move a card to an incorrect location. Instead of just beeping and preventing the move, a scolding window opened and scolded me for making an illegal move. I then had to close the window. When I got to the point there were no more moves, a window opened and told me there were no more moves and gave me the choice of replaying the game or exiting. When I chose exit, the game closed. I opened and tried again. This I closed the window and chose new game from the regular Windows menu. I do not consider these changes improvements. I feel like Microsoft is harassing me.