Time to upgrade because…. well… Microsoft says so! by Steve Mussey MD
What is with computer software designers?
If a computer software writer was in charge of car design, the accelerator and brake pedal would switch position every three years.
Now, our office computers are all individually begging and urging us to upgrade to Windows 10.
The interface will be better, I am told.
Really? I have to do real work on these machines, as does my staff. I don’t allocate time for computer adventures and exploration. We have to get stuff done!
Windows 7 is not perfect, but it is pretty decent. No surprises. Everyone knows how to work it.
While at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas years ago, I saw the demos for Windows 8 and, like many, said “What the heck are they thinking! This is a business disaster!!”
Operating systems are tools. They are not supposed to be a new “toy.”
Windows 8 was the disaster we had predicted.
It was as if Microsoft said: “I’m going to take your most necessary tool and change all the controls! There! Just try and get some work accomplished! HA! HA! HA!”
Now, we have an almost perpetual nagging screen on our computers suggesting we “upgrade” to Windows 10. A couple of them have already upgraded themselves.
The verdict: Too many controls get moved around. It’s not Windows 8 disaster material, but it is also harder than just sticking with Windows 7.
Again: WE HAVE WORK TO DO, DARN IT!!! DON’T YOU PEOPLE AT MICROSOFT UNDERSTAND!!!!??????
You might want to hold off on that Windows 10 upgrade. I suggest you look into some of its new “features” that are deeply buried within the system. There are numerous ways in which Microsoft plans to monitor and market your online behavior all of which are extremely difficult to turn off. The new browser will note every website visit, every add click and then happily shower you with more directed ads, and no, ad blockers will not stop this that I know of as it is part of the operating system. The new voice interactive system will learn your voice and speech patterns and keep record of it. There are other things as well. Go look it up for yourself, you may want to reconsider Windows 10.
i still wish we could use xp. actually, it would be nice if we could migrate to linux, as we could have actual security and keep people from goofing off on facebook during the workday, but our emr vendor (ECW, if you must know), does not support mac, linux, windows 8, or windows 10….
Its far more simple than that, Microsloth wants to monetise (annual rental) the process.
The problem with the computer industry is that we have long forgotten that computers are appliances, as Miss Manners points out about telephones. When your telephone rings, it is of no compelling consequence – your appliance has made a noise to signal that you may enter into conversation now, if you wish. It is an observation, not a mandate.
We have constructed a world where the agenda of other people – or infinitely worse, the mechanical agenda of appliances – is granted privilege over the lives of human beings.
I have an HP printer, that interrupts the simple to offer the complex, much of which it cannot perform. Its failure is, of course, my fault – I have to set it up in a certain way. It is strategically indifferent to what my purposes are – it is built with a narcissistic bent to my adapting to what it seems to want.
Multiply by a million, and you get an EMR. The principle that humans may own appliances for their own convenience and amusement has gone with the Victrola. You will do what the computer expects, when the computer expects it. If you are on-line with the eMonolith at work, just wait now – your computer will reboot and download its updates, which may well just be Windows Media Player’s next incarnation. Just you sit and wait, bio-boy.
Does anyone harbor the paranoid suspicion of the coincidence of WINDOWS TEN and ICD-TEN? perhaps they are made for each other, Frank and Bride-of-Frank. Don’t forget that ICD-10 will be strolling down the aisle in about 40 days or so.
Windows seemed to veer off at about Windows NT from its adhesion to the customer, and has become a Rain-Man like autistic creation capable of amusing itself, but not so much with the interpersonal interaction. We, like Tom Cruise in the movie, have to HANDLE it, rather than just let it go along unsupervised. Let’s see how Windows 11 gets on with ICD-11.
That’s why I use a Mac.
Amen brotha!
I upgraded my home machine to Windows 10 from Windows 7 home last weekprocess took about an hour (including updating Windows 7 with SP1).
So far, I’m impressed.
Like all versions of windows, there is a learning curve, there are a lot of mouse clicks.
So far no real issues
VPN into the hospital seamlessly integrated.
EMR (Epic) is its usual cranky self.
Radiology PACS plug in is ok.
Both still use Citrix as an interface.
Dragon Naturally Speaking without issue.
Give me another week.