Windows Killed My Grass

Should I upgrade to the new version of Microsoft Windows?

I don’t know, Mom, what would the new version do that you can’t do now?

Nothing that I know of.

Then, I would wait.

When I worked for Microsoft, I would get a call like this about every six months or so. It wasn’t always about Windows. Sometimes it was about Office, or some other Microsoft product. Even though I worked for the company, I was a late adopter when it came to recommendations to my family. Especially since I was their first call when it came to technical support. 

I haven’t upgraded to Microsoft Windows 10. Like you, I’ve been bombarded with the ads. I’ve seen those spam-like messages. 

YOU’VE WON A FREE COPY OF WINDOWS 10. CLICK HERE TO CLAIM YOUR PRIZE

I’m pretty careful to not click on every “Prize” notice I get. I have friends who either couldn’t resist or they like being early adopters. At work, we are mostly a Microsoft shop. I joined an online meeting a few weeks ago and heard this.

Where’s Alex? Didn’t he schedule this meeting?

Yeah, but Windows 10 screwed up his copy of Office. He’s rebooting to see if that will let him join.

Alex is an early adopter. Personally, I’m running Windows 7 on my work laptop, Windows Vista on my home lap machine, and I still have a few copies of Windows XP running on some old, but still running computers.

Windows really did kill a friend of mine’s business. For a lot of years, he realized that Windows XP was a solid program that gave people just about all they needed if all they needed was to surf the web and use Office. He bought and refurbished old hardware and sold computers for $75 that were these barebones systems. When Microsoft killed support for XP, after more than a decade, his business model was no longer sustainable. 

The real point for me, is that computers are tools. They should help us to accomplish some task. I have tools that my grandfather bought when he was young. A few of those tools are obsolete. I’ve eliminated them. A few of them have worn out. I replaced them. But, many of them are just as good as they wore60 years ago. I’m not going to buy new tools just because the manufacturer releases a new version. A wrench is a wrench. 

I treat computers and software the same way. I’m not going to upgrade just because the manufacturer says I should. 

Oh, and the headline to this post? “Windows Killed My Grass”? Doesn’t have anything to do with Microsoft. But, it got me thinking about the destructive power of Windows both the software and the hardware kind. 

Here’s a picture of my lawn. 

I assumed that brown spot, which only shows up in the late summer, was a result of not enough water, or not enough fertilizer. Nope. It’s windows that killed it. That side of my house faces West. In the afternoon, during the hottest part of the day, that section of lawn gets twice the sun as the green grass next to it. My neighbor pointed it out. 

Here’s a picture of the lawn from a different angle.

Not only is my lawn getting the direct sunlight, but that brown patch also gets reflected sunlight from the windows. 

Windows is killing my lawn. I blame Bill Gates. 

Rodney M Bliss is an author, columnist and IT Consultant. His blog updates every weekday at 7:00 AM Mountain Time. He lives in Pleasant Grove, UT with his lovely wife, thirteen children and grandchildren. 

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