Windows Live Essentials 2011
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See below for my rant to Microsoft surrounding Windows Live Essentials 2011. Personally, I think it SUCKS
To Whom It May Concern,
I am writing to you today as a Microsoft Consumer, outraged by a number of issues that have come to my attention. These issues deal mainly with the roll out of Windows Live Essentials 2011 (namely the Windows Live Messenger 2011). In attempting to resolve some of these issues pertaining to Windows Live Essentials 2011, other issues have risen. The end result of this several hour ordeal has left me with a very bitter and disappointing impression of Microsoft and their overall customer support experience. All things taken into account, I feel I have been left with no other option but to formulate my concerns in writing, being as my customer service issues have still yet to be addressed. Hopefully this method will result in my issues finally being acknowledged, and/or directed to the appropriate place.
Windows Live Messenger 2011 is advertised as being “the best way to stay in touch with your friends” as advertised at hxxp://explore.live.com/windows-live-messenger. I believe this advertisement to be both misleading and a gross misrepresentation of the Windows Live Messenger experience. Within minutes of installing Windows Live Messenger 2011, I found that it is not only more complicated than the previous release (Windows Live Messenger 2009), but it is also more frustrating and annoying than ever. While certain new features of the Windows Live Messenger 2011 are indeed designed to provide for added privacy (such as changes to the “Appear Offline” mode), I am greatly disappointed by the overall end result. Functions and features that were once available in the previous release seem to either be missing completely or otherwise hidden in such a manner that the average user would not stand a chance at finding them. This only begins to touch on the subject of privacy and the overall non user friendly nature of the new Windows Live Messenger.
While we’re on the topic of user privacy, there are certain other issues that need to be addressed. In Windows Live Messenger 2011, you are now forced to use the same display name as your outgoing email when using a Windows Live Hotmail account. This presents a whole new issue on the topic of privacy. It is a well-known fact that most users (including myself) do not want their full name to be displayed on their messenger and/or use an alias name when using an instant messenger. This “simple integration” so to speak only ensures that users are now either exposed to a lesser level of privacy by exposing their full name on messenger, or forces them to use their alias when sending emails, therefore defeating the entire purpose of the display name to help conceal their identity. The Microsoft Privacy Policy (as available at hxxp://privacy.microsoft.com/en-ca/fullnotice.mspx) states that “Microsoft is committed to protecting the security of your personal information”, yet some of these new “privacy features” seem to be designed to do the exact opposite. When did it become a practice of Microsoft to contradict their own privacy statement? For that matter, when did Microsoft’s policy change to make things more complicated, frustrating, and ultimately not user friendly, and therefore not desirable for their users?
Additionally, the “Windows Live Today” window that used to pop up by default in the previous release of Windows Live Messenger, which proved to be one of the most annoying things about the previous release, has only gotten worse. Instead of an annoying pop-up window, this nuisance has been integrated right into the main Windows Live Messenger window. Although this “integration” provides a solution for the annoying pop up, there lies a deeper rooted issue in making such a transition. Upon extensive research, I have been able to determine that although there is a way of hiding this much hated screen by switching to “compact view”, there is in fact no way to disable it (which was possible in the previous release). According to my network traffic tracker, even with Windows Live Messenger set to “compact view”, the content of this page is still downloaded and updated on the same real-time basis as though it were displayed. Although this does not directly affect me as I have a high-speed internet connection with no limit on the amount of data that can be uploaded or downloaded, this is not the case of all internet users. In the case of users in a rural community where broadband internet is not possible, the overall bandwidth that these users have available is not only significantly lower, but is also very limited. By not providing a way of disabling this traffic, Windows Live Messenger 2011 creates a situation for dial-up users in particular, where the overall performance of their internet connection can be greatly impacted.
Excessive bandwidth usage is not the only issue when it comes to resources that Windows Live Messenger 2011 creates. Even running Windows 7 Ultimate on a 2GHz processor with 2GB of RAM, I’ve found that Windows Live Messenger 2011 consumes an alarmingly high amount of system resources, and does impact the overall speed of my system performance. While I have a system that does support Windows 7, this does not mean that all internet users have (or even have access to) the same technology, including hardware, operating system, and internet capacity. The fact that Windows Live Messenger 2011 impacts my overall system performance suggests that users who for example are running Windows XP with 512MB of RAM would ultimately prove to be a painfully agonizing process as compared to the previous release. In my opinion, this trend suggests that Microsoft’s stand point is “Ask not what your computer can do for you, but what you can buy for your computer”.
As mentioned above, there are other issues that have come to surface since my horrid experience with Windows Live Messenger 2011. After discovering that I made the huge mistake of making the upgrade to Windows Live Messenger 2011, I attempted to contact Microsoft Customer Service to attempt to find a way of rolling back to the previously installed version of Windows Live Messenger. This is where my experience with Microsoft begins to take an even more unpleasant turn. Aside from the 1-800-MICROSOFT IVR sending me to the incorrect department multiple times, I am greatly disturbed by the way my calls were handled. When calling customer service multiple times, I felt it necessary to abandon a number of the calls for various reasons. During every phone call I made to Microsoft Customer Support, I was asked if I minded “holding the line for 2 minutes” while the agent researched my options. Depending on the call, I grew impatient after anywhere from 7 – 10 minutes on hold, without the agent checking back with a status update. What is the point of setting an expectation for a customer, when the expectations cannot be met?
Furthermore, my experience with Microsoft is less than satisfactory as it was very evident that the customer service agent either did not adequately comprehend the English language enough to conduct business, or otherwise did not seem to care about providing a resolution. After giving up on Microsoft Customer Service since my efforts in trying to get support had proven to be quite useless, I began to try and resolve this situation by researching it myself. Personally, I find it appalling that Microsoft’s official answer to my situation seems to be “Sorry if you don’t like the new version, but once you’ve upgraded, there is no turning back.” In my opinion, this “solution” is absolutely unacceptable as I was to the understanding that the customer is the most important part of any business because if it wasn’t for the customers, there would be no business. On that note, I find it to be completely unacceptable to merely “dismiss” a customer’s concerns by trying to pass them off to someone else. Every phone call I made to Microsoft, including the call that was directed to Microsoft Store, I was never given any assurance that at the very least my concerns would be escalated to ensure that they were at least heard. This type of customer service (or in this case lack thereof) has left me with serious doubt on how much faith to put into Microsoft’s Customer Service department. This lack of customer support only makes me put some serious consideration into abandoning all Microsoft products and making the switch to Linux. Is this example of customer service really the way that Microsoft wants to do business?
In light of the above, I am faced with a rather complex situation, which borderlines on discontinuing all business with Microsoft on account of a very poor customer support system. I hope that these issues once and for all are addressed, as I feel I have wasted countless hours of my time only to find out that my input as a customer is completely meaningless. I would appreciate some kind of acknowledgement by email, regular mail, or by phone to at least confirm that my efforts in trying to resolve this problem were not useless. I hope that once and for all, we can actually move forward with progress, as it seems that so far, bashing my head into the wall would be more productive.
Sincerely,
(Name & Contact Info removed for pirvacy)
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WOW
MrMazda,
I read your email to Micro$oft with interest.
Your entire tone and detail was truly exemplary and I hope that they do respond.
I rarely use any chat software. I have a few things loaded on my puter, but keep them from NOT loading unless I specifically do so.
Nonetheless, what you described articulates a true problem and hopefully others will also recognize this and complain.
I really empathize.
Hugs,
Tim -
I was just slightly pissed when I started drawing it up lol
Something about it taking 3 hours to find a way to roll it back (which I never told them I found a way of doing) was just the cherry on the top
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I do so understand what you're ranting about MrMazda. >:D
I didn't want to battle with the program (= Essentials) anymore and have banned it to a certain level.
If I want to use my MSN accounts to chat I simply open Meebo or Trillian and not Messenger anymore ;D -
If you or anyone you know has made the switch to Windows Live Essentials 2011, I have uploaded the installer for my previous version's install file onto my web server. If there's enough interest, rather than providing access to users, I can upload it as a torrent. Once you have the old installer package, it's easy to roll back. All you have to do is uninstall all of the programs in the Windows Live Essentials 2011 version, reboot, then re-install the 2009 release.
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Thank you for the offering, but I suspect it to be available at oldversion.com soon too (if it isn't already).
Or do you also have all the patches, security updates etc. for the previous version.
The only thing I have to be sure of, before I do it, is that I check if I still know all the passwords I've used before switching back.
Just in case the mail addresses have to be signed in again.
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All the patches are included. I didn't know of the existance of that website. When I did the downgrade, I didn't loose any information when rolling back. That's one thing that Microsoft is good for in that regard.
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I didn't know of the existance of that website.
You see, every day you can learn something new.
(Have a look around on that site, there's a lot of "old stuff" to find)
