Why Does Bill Gates Lie To Me Like I’m Montel Williams?

Xp_lies_2I mean, does he think I’m Montel Williams or something?

If now, why would he lie to me like this?

You see that "Updates are ready for your computer" balloon?

I hate those. They pop up annoying ALL THE STINKING TIME–unless you tell the system to simply STOP alerting you when updates for the OS are ready.

The TOTALLY IDIOTIC thing is that they pop up even when there AIN’T any updates ready for your computer!

Like in this case.

I mean, an update had JUST BEEN INSTALLED, so it was completely up to date unless Microsoft released a new update in the last few minutes.

Only that’s not what’s causing this balloon to pop up.

How do I know?

Because the computer IS NOT ON THE INTERNET. In fact, the cable to the Internet ISN’T EVEN PLUGGED IN.

There is therefore NO WAY FOR MICROSOFT TO HAVE NOTIFIED MY COMPUTER THAT THERE IS A NEW UPDATE.

So Bill Gates is just lying to me like I’m Montel Williams.

And this isn’t the only time that’s happened. I’ve observed exactly the same phenomenon multiple times on multiple computers.

BILL, STOP IT! Didn’t you ever hear the story of the boy who cried "wolf"? That’s PRECISELY what you’re doing to millions of Windows users. You lie to your customers with so many false "Updates are ready" balloons that they simply turn off the update system and go without updates–sometimes important ones.

You’ve GOT TO stop lying to your customers this way. It’s INSANE.

Author: Jimmy Akin

Jimmy was born in Texas, grew up nominally Protestant, but at age 20 experienced a profound conversion to Christ. Planning on becoming a Protestant seminary professor, he started an intensive study of the Bible. But the more he immersed himself in Scripture the more he found to support the Catholic faith, and in 1992 he entered the Catholic Church. His conversion story, "A Triumph and a Tragedy," is published in Surprised by Truth. Besides being an author, Jimmy is the Senior Apologist at Catholic Answers, a contributing editor to Catholic Answers Magazine, and a weekly guest on "Catholic Answers Live."

20 thoughts on “Why Does Bill Gates Lie To Me Like I’m Montel Williams?”

  1. It is endemic to the way the “Balloon” widget works, although a professional Windows programmer (which I am not) might be able to make them go away. Once those notices have been put into the Balloon queue they are gonna pop up, even if they don’t get their chance until days later and even if the condition that got them into the queue in the first place is long gone. It happens with any application that uses the Balloon (or at least any that I have written), not just the automatic updates. Pretty annoying.

  2. Ah, do I detect the ravings of yet another MS-hater? Been there myself, Jimmy. I’ve recently improved my situation enormously, however, by downloading and beginning to use OpenOffice v2.0, which is a nice open format, FREE, office suite with the usual goodies plus a few interesting wrinkles. Massachusetts, as you know, is renowned for doing REALLY stupid things–re-electing Teddy Kennedy for, lo, these many decades being chief among them–but they have actually done something smart lately. They adopted the open ducument format for the Commonwealth effective 2007. Not that far away.

  3. Depending on your preferences, there is a state wherein Windows Update has downloaded updates from Microsoft to your computer, but it has not yet installed these updates and needs to ask your permission before doing so.
    It sounds like Windows Update got itself into this state, but cannot get itself out of this state. I speculte one of the following to be the cause.
    1) Perhaps you downloaded and installed the same update it had already downloaded and is waiting for you to authorize for installation. I would certainly hope it could look at an installation database, discover that the update(s) in question had been installed, and then cease to annoy. Microsoft has a pretty thorough testing procedure, but sometimes programmers miss things.
    2) Perhaps it used that fact that you’re offline to conclude, “it’s a good time to ask the user to install updates now becuase there’s no internet activity and the taskbar looks fairly empty.”
    3) Security through annoyance. The thought being that if it annoys you enough then you’ll constantly keep the computer updated, thereby creating a net effect of increased security across the Microsoft userbase. I doubt that’s the reason your balloon is popping up, but it is the reason they have the big red and yellow shields in your system tray, indicating the security status of your computer.
    In spite of XP Service Pack 2’s annoyances, it’s an important shift in Microsoft’s attitude and will generally lead to good. Instead of “easy and secure if it’s not annoying” by default, they are now adopting a “secure by default” policy in their software.

  5. Indeed Nathan is right. This is an improvement. And, as has been pointed out, if you already updated it could be pointing you to an update it detected during the download process of the previous update (which really wouldn’t be that strange).

  6. All comments about DOS aside (it hasn’t needed an update for years 🙂
    Get a Mac?
    Hmm..or how about Debian? You get to choose when to update.
    apt-get update
    …then…
    apt-get upgrade
    And we’re happy. Of course, configuring Debian isn’t always pretty…you need at least a 13 year old next door neighbor to do it..Once they turn past 19 years old, they’re useless…

  7. Of course, don’t update your system if you have dialup…bad idea.
    And sometimes the package system still breaks…but hey, with a Windows box, you’re reinstalling everything 2 times a year anyways.

  8. “I can see you’re upset about this. I honestly think you ought to sit down calmly, take a stress pill, and think things over…””

  11. “I can see you’re upset about this. I honestly think you ought to sit down calmly, take a stress pill, and think things over…”
    Daisy, Daisy, tell me your answer do!

  12. This situation is very common if you have a lot of older software installed/running – Windows downloads several updates, but each one can only be installed in isolation from the others as they each need a restart of the operating system. If you wait a long time between updates it will also accumulate a number of individual updates.

  13. Ever since I chose the automatic update selection with a specific time, I no longer get “Bill’s” balloons. I do however get the update page site when I open IE on rare occasions. Don’t ask me why.

  14. could someone explain to me the Montel Williams reference?
    It’s from one of those detective shows.
    Apparently Richard Belzer’s detective character was once interrogating a dishonest criminal and the following exchange occurred:
    Munch: “OK, now I get it, you’re saving your really good lies for some smarter cop, is that it? I’m just a donut in the on-deck circle. Wait until the real guy gets here. Wait till that big guy comes back. I’m probably just his secretary. I’m just Montel Williams. You want to talk to Larry King.”
    Suspect: “I’m telling the truth!”
    Munch: “I have been a murder police for ten years. If you’re gonna lie to me, you lie to me with respect. Now what is it, is it my shoes? Is it my haircut? Got a problem with my haircut? Don’t you ever again lie to me like I’m Montel Williams. I am not Montel Williams. I am not Montel Williams!”
    Bolander (on phone): “Yeah, it’s OK, I’ll call back.”
    Suspect: “Who’s Montel Williams?”
    Munch: “I’m not Montel Williams. Do you hear me? I’m not Montel Williams.”

  15. montel williams is a tv talk show host who is a sort of like Oprah spiced with a little Jerry Springer

  19. Looks like you have a few too many system tray icons. Go to Start, Run, type “msconfig” then enter – go to the “Startup” tab and fire away!Your system will thank you for being less bogged down.

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