Microsoft Versus The English Language

Far be it from me to be the grammar police, but Microsoft has presented me with their own belt and suspenders moment!

Far be it from me to be the grammar police, but Microsoft has presented me with their own belt and suspenders moment! It all came in a dialog box as I was installing some software.

If you haven’t heard yet Microsoft has a reasonably good anti-virus package which they supply for free! If you’ve got an expired version of Norton on your PC or are paying for some shoddy product you should consider Microsoft Security Essentials.

A few months ago they s-l-o-w-l-y began rolling out the free upgrade to Version 2. Tonight was my turn. A dialog box emerged. I clicked a few buttons. Electrons flew through the air. Bingo. Protection is mine!

As the last step in the process I was presented with the pop-up you see at the top of this entry. Read carefully.

You’ve successfully completed the Microsoft Security Essentials Upgrade Installation Wizard

Sweet. I’m finally complete! Except the next line says,

Click ‘Finish’ to complete the upgrade

Huh? I thought I was complete?

Every night I pray these guys are better at writing code than creating complementary sentences.

14 thoughts on “Microsoft Versus The English Language”

  1. Sure you want their anti-virus programs? If they can’t get their own program finished without clicking finish maybe, their anti virus program is not quite right either. Another thing why ask you to click “Finish”? what other choice do you have?

  2. That’s nothing. Since I am now watching WVIT, the other night I heard one of their local newscasters say, “Have you saw us at 5 o’clock, you would have….”
    instead of “Had you seen us at 5 o’clock…” I couldn’t believe I heard correctly so I listened again. He said it. Then I looked up his bio: a Princeton grad! I hope he was just having a flustered on-camera moment. Suffice it to say, Geoff, I miss your articulate self doing the weather. I really do.

  3. And then there are the comment boxes that come up that say:

    “Do you want to continue the installation”

    If you click on “No” it says:

    “Failure to finish this installation could cause other applications not to work properly on your computer”

    Geesh I don’t have much choice then huh? Or are they just using scare tactics? lol

  4. I pay for a not-shoddy product – ESET NOD32 (www.eset.com). Norton and McAfee are very intrusive and get in the way, NOD32 just does it’s job quietly. Highly recommended.

    As for Microsoft, I personally don’t trust the same company that wrote the software with all of the vulnerabilities to protect themselves with more software.

  5. I just set a new Win7 PC for someone in my work place. We use a number of outside softwares to complete our tasks. While wiggling my way through my first attempt at this with all our programs, I ran into a lot of criptic messages like this, warning me that things had not gone right and themn in the next line telling me to click to continue or to finish and the install was successful……….perhaps they havd a dyslexic designer on the Win7 team? was this win7?

  6. Keith, I agree that NOD32 is a really good product. It’s written in assembly so it’s super fast and doesn’t slow your pc down much. Plus it has actually beaten Norton and McAfee in virus testing.

    As for Microsoft Security Essentials; It actually does work well. I’ve cleared off a lot of viruses of family and cutomer computers with it. I don’t know how it is with actual virus prevention though but from what I hear it’s pretty good.

  7. I hate Norton with a passion but I always buy the subscription because I trust McAfee even less. Thanks to all for the recommendations on the other programs. I’m definitely going to look into both of them.

  8. Geoff – I am very sad you are no longer going to be part of our daily lives. I sincerely hope you land a job that will allow us to watch or listen to you again. You had a great run at 8. Not sure I understand how the outpouring of support for you has not made them reconsider their decision.
    Good luck and I’ll miss you.
    JP

  9. Geoff- I’m the first to bash on M$, but of all the criticism they deserve that one is a little nit picky.

    But to those of you questioning the integrity of the software. As much as I hate to say it, Security Essentials is good antivirus/malware software. It outperforms most pay-for software, and free options like AVG and Avast. It’s worth it, and it’s a great price.

  10. Geoff, it’s very simple to understand. You completed the installation of the installation wizard. You must now click ‘Finish’ to complete the upgrade of the actual software.

    1. Randall, you very well may be right. I just thought it was done in an incredibly clumsy way even though it was probably vetted by a bunch of departments.

  11. No Randall,

    All the updating/upgrading has already been completed at that stage. Hitting finish just closes the window.

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