Installing Office is as easy as 1-2-3-4-5-6-7-8-9-10-11-12-13-14-15

I was recently installing MS Office 2008 (for Mac) on a brand new hard drive. 90% of the time, installing software is simple: drag the app to the Applications folder and you are done. 8% of the time, it’s slightly more complicated: run the installer, agree to the terms, click continue and you are done. The other 2% of the time is Adobe installers and Microsoft installers.

Adobe installers have been covered other places, so I won’t repeat all that here.

Microsoft actually uses the native Mac OS X installer, but still manages to make it extremely over-complicated. I’ll go over the install step by step…

Double-click the installer. This is what I see:

Nothing strange there. Click Continue.

I’m not really sure what this means, but I’ll click Continue.

License Agreement. Standard stuff. It’s worth noting the strange line breaks around “updates, supplements, Internet-based services, and support services”. Continue.

Yes, I really really agree. Agree. Move on.

Quit everything. I guess that makes sense. Continue Installation.

Product key. Got it. Don’t know why it needs to be displayed in the installer, since it clearly says that it’s also in the About menu of each app and when you call MS for help, they’ll tell you to go to the About menu. Whatever. Continue.

A breakdown of what can be installed. Nothing really strange here except that if you add the size of each component, it totals 585mb. However, the installer claims that the total size of Office is 927mb. Remind me again why I don’t really trust MS software? Click Install.

Alright…installer progress bar. This is the moment I’ve been waiting for! The heavens open and the angels sing! Glory to all!

Remove Office? What now? I just installed Office. Oh, it is telling me that it will find older versions (including the demo, which apparently causes “problems”) and remove them. I would think that it could check on its own and then warn me if there is going to be a problem. I won’t have any previous versions because this is a brand new hard drive. Continue.

It’s done searching for other versions of Office. Good to know. Continue.

“No version of Office were found on this computer.” I assume it means that no previous versions of Office were found, since it just finished installing Office 2008. This is not a shocking revelation because, as you may remember, this is a brand new hard drive. Continue.

Um. Riiiight. Continue.

Ok. Successfully installed! The only step left is to…”run the Setup Assistant to complete the process”? What the fuck? Close.

The installer quits and the MS Updater launches. In a confidence-inspiring manner, the first thing it shows me is this:

Yikes. If it’s any consolation, I don’t understand the event sysodisA message either. Ok. (I don’t even want to think about clicking Edit.)

And finally:

More progress bars to finish up my Office installation. On the plus side, at least I had my Identity upgraded! And it only took 15 steps. Continue.

Obvious question: why use Office at all when iWork is so much better? One bone-chilling word: Entourage. We use Exchange for email at work and the only Exchange client for Mac is Entourage. If Apple ever gets their act together and offers full Exchange support in iCal, I will dump Office off my machine that very day.

My email really needs an image of a goose.

I was poking around the menus in Entourage 2008 and found a menu item called Tools > Toolbox > Object Palette. I was curious what the hell this thing might be so I selected it. This is what popped up on my screen:

I’m not really sure why I’d need a selection of farm animals as my default images in an email, but that seems to be what the Entourage team at Microsoft thought. Also, what the hell does “Object Palette” mean anyway?

Seriously, do these people not have meetings? Is there any common sense check? What the fuck is going on up there in Redmond?

I have more hierarchical levels than you…suck it!

The image above is having a hierarchy crisis. The name of the product contains no less than five separate levels and two copyright symbols.

Please donate. For the price of a cup of coffee, you can help hierarchy find its way in life. Don’t let this happen to you.

Stay safe.

Screen typography is for pussies.

Take a look at the above screen capture from PowerPoint. How many different font weights can you count?

What’s that you say? Two? You are soooo wrong! There is only ONE font weight in that image. That’s right…one. The bolder looking type is actually two point sizes bigger than the lighter looking type.

I don’t even know where to start with this one…

They make my brain hurt.

Uh…are you sure about that logic?

And the only option available to me is to press “Continue”. Where does that button take me? That’s right, back to itself. wtf.

It’s like the people at MS never really think all the way through the workflow. They are huge company with unlimited resources. You’d think they could have a meeting where somebody says “Does it really make sense to quit the updater to update?” I dunno. I guess that’s why I don’t run a huge company.

Typical, but ironic.

So there was this deal: buy Microsoft Office for Mac 2004 and get the 2008 upgrade for the cost of shipping ($6). Awesome. Sign me up. I bought the student/teacher edition of Office 2004 (my wife is a teacher) and sent in the upgrade form.

It’s been a few weeks since they launched the new version and I haven’t heard anything yet so I figured I would call and get an update. Also, I read a rumor that if they didn’t send your copy right away and you didn’t confirm you still wish to upgrade, they would just cancel your order. Sounds totally retarded, but that’s the way Microsoft works.

• Thank you for calling Microsoft. How can I help you?
• I ordered the upgrade of Office for Mac and I haven’t heard anything, so I’m just calling to get an update and make sure that you received everything I sent in.
• Our computer system isn’t working right now. If you call back in about three hours it might be back up.
• Uh, ok.

To recap: I called Microsoft and they couldn’t help because their computers were down. Awesome.

54-digits of Hell

I have a Mac. But I also have VM software that lets me run Windows in a separate window for whenever I need to run crappy software. Today I needed Windows to have a little more punch, so I increased the RAM allocation to my Windows installation. NOTE: I didn’t actually install more RAM, just told Windows that it had more available if it needed it.

Upon booting Windows, it tells me that I have changed my hardware and I need to “activate” Windows within three days or they will come to my home and kill my family. Ok ok…I’ll click Activate. No problems, done and done. Whew, for a moment there, I thought I would have to write a blog. That was a close one.

I fire up PowerPoint (it sucks, I know, but I need it for this project at work). Oh goodie! I need to reactive Office 2003 because I “recently changed my hardware” (which, of course, I didn’t – WTF). I’ll click Activate. This worked 2 minutes ago, but this time it tells me that my product key (54 digits long) has had the maximum number of activations. It also gives me the product key and a phone number to call.

At my office we have found a way to maximize the customer service experience on the phone. Here’s actual video of us preparing for a call to a customer service call center:

After mentally and physically preparing myself, I call the number and get to talk to a robot. “She” asks for my product key, which I have to speak into the phone instead of just using the number pad. I read all 54 numbers, then it tells me that the product key has had the maximum number of activations. The robot transfers me to a human.

• Thank you for calling India. May I have your product key? (I’m kidding about the India part.)
• I already gave your automated system all 54 digits of my product key.
• I’m sorry, I don’t have that information.
• Right. (I read her all 54 digits.)
• This product key has had the maximum number of activations. (shocking)

Of course this is the case. We all knew this would be the case. That key didn’t work over the internet, or over the phone, so there is no reason to assume that it would work now. Whatever. Next hoop.

She has me delete some random file. Now when I launch Office again, I get a new 54-digit product key. Of course, I have to read this to the service rep. In turn, she reads me the activation key, which is…wait for it…54-digits long. Awesome.

I’m pretty convinced that it would take me less time to find a crack on the internet than it does to activate this piece of shit legally…do they really think this is the best way to get people to buy their software?