People often comment on my totally random changes and updates and complain about my lack of announcements beforehand. Unbeknownst to them, there is a very logical and reasonable explanation for my silence, which was demonstrated admirably this week.
Earlier this week, we finally made plans to deploy Windows XP Service Pack 2. After a couple of months, I finally was able to set up some Group Policies on our domain controller to properly tone down some of the over-protective “features” we didn’t need, and we were ready to go.
Monday afternoon we sent out an announcement about the changes.
Monday night, I approved the patch on our Systems Update Server (a centralized local Windows Update, if you will). Due to the configuration, clients should download the update Tuesday morning when they started up, it should get installed in the background, and by Wednesday morning, everyone should be running the new service pack.
Tuesday morning I get to work after class and it all starts. My boss has looked at several machines, people who are complaining about a problem with one of our home-brewed applications that the entire company uses. Apparently when the screen saver comes up (they’ve been bitching about the screen savers ever since I implemented a Group Policy to enforce them a few weeks ago), their machines were locking up and they couldn’t do *anything*. I tell my boss that I think they’re lying, that they can do anything except use that one application, and that it’s just because Windows has thrown an error dialogue that’s just gotten hidden behind the actual app window. I explain to him that if he just switches to another application and then back to the one with the problem, that the error should pop up and they should be able to clear it and move on.
Wednesday morning, apparently it becomes a big issue. My boss calls me (on speaker phone, as usual), and tells me that it’s got to be that “thing we just released” (referring to Service Pack 2). I tell him it has nothing to do with our applications, and he tells me yeah, it shouldn’t, but obviously does.
I get a call later that morning from someone who has the error message up. I tell them to wait and not touch anything and I’ll be over as soon as I can. By the time I get there, they’ve given up and restarted anyway, content to complain. I tell them screw it and I leave for lunch. Not 10 minutes later, I get a call on my cell phone, while we’re in the car, from that person’s manager. She says the problem’s back. I tell her there’s nothing I can do over the phone, that I have to see it, and that she wasn’t patient enough to wait earlier and we’d have to wait for the next occurrence. She goes on a rant about how this is taking way too much time to have to shut down and restart every time the screen saver comes up and that if she has to get a new computer, that’s what has to happen, because they can’t keep doing this.
First off, she’d just gotten a new computer 2 weeks prior. Secondly, every single machine we have is exactly identical. A new one would make absolutely 100% NO DIFFERENCE. Why does everyone think a new computer will fix absolutely everything? Thirdly, just because you say she needs a new computer in no way makes it so, nor does it put another Dell shipping box on the UPS truck.
I finally get off the phone with her and try to enjoy what’s left of my lunch. After lunch, I get a call from her again, saying that she’s got the error on her screen again and to come look at it. I run over, tired of playing this game.
You’ll never guess what happened… Turns out I was right. The error box was just thrown behind the application window, and if they’d bothered to follow my instructions and flip back and forth to it, they could have cleared the error and moved right along. On top of all that, after talking to our developer, it’s a known error relating to a bug in one of the components he’s using, and it has existed for OVER TWO MOTHER F’ING YEARS!
If this doesn’t conclusively prove my point and give me 100% support for not informing users of jack shit, then nothing ever will. If they can randomly start blaming shit on a service pack update when the bug has existed for over two years, that’s far enough… I will never release an announcement again, ever!
Remember the mantra: Users are stupid.