I Need Big Expensive Software! (Not Really)

A recent issue of Database Trends and Applications magazine quoted a Forrester Research study that found 80% of database installations only use 20% of the features provided. My estimation is that this statistic also applies to other software, especially some of the most "popular" used and required on home, school, and office PCs. And this is a large aspect of why open source software should be used, encouraged, and by no means discriminated against in the public arena.

Let's avoid any anti-Windows or anti-Microsoft propaganda or personal preference. Anyone who knows me, already knows my personal preference for Ubuntu Linux anyhow. I'm going to focus briefly on the MS Office suite of applications, because as we know it is the dominant software in this arena.

My wife does things with MS Office at work that would make most people's head spin. She needs and uses the power, APIs, and scripting that it provides. She justifies the $X for her corporate license for Access, Word, Excel, etc. At home, she uses a word processor, rarely, for basic documents and a spreadsheet for rosters with name, address, etc. There is no justifying the expense of MS Office for home. She will occasionally use the old copy of Office97 from our college days, but our primary productivity software is OpenOffice.org. For me, running a Linux desktop, it's always OpenOffice or other open software.

If a corporation decides to buy a corporate license for MS Office or other proprietary productivity software, that's fine by me. When a government spends tax money on licenses for employees who don't use/need the added functionality, it's misuse of resources.

When a public school requires students to use MS Office to read an assignment downloaded from the Internet or as the only format for submitted assignments, there is a problem and an unfair bias toward students who can afford home computers and more over the MS Office software. This irks me. Of course OpenOffice can read/write to MS Office formats, so those "in the know" are OK (most of the time) but the majority of educators do not know this and if they do it is not taught or explained to students.

Teach students fundamentals, not memorized specifics, so that they can rapidly adapt and learn a variety of tools. I have seen countless times educators and students alike turn aside from alternative software options because it's "not the same," "too different," "too hard." The fundamental differences in MS Office and OpenOffice are negligible, and in my opinion, no more difficult to grasp than when MS Office dropped the menu bar and got all decorated with ribbons and bows. Users adapted to the changes due to necessity. It is no more difficult to adapt to another office suite.

The principle of cost vs features vs needed features vs compatibility, should be looked at in all organizations from small to large corporations, schools, governments, churches, and non-profits.

My point in all this is use the software you need for the job your performing and don't force others into your boat when another (potentially free) option will work equally well.

Win GA Flakes Out

Here's an unconfirmed tip I read somewhere that may be useful in those cases where your legitimate copy of Windows XP gets confused and says your Genuine Advantage validation is bad and won't let you update the OS.

Again, this is unconfirmed...

to get updates with a version of windows XP or Home that for some reason thinks it is invalid, Try this little trick, when you go on updates and check for windows genuine validation, it will tell you that your windows is not genuine, what u do is ...... >click on tools in internet explorer >click on manage add-ons > find the windows genuine advantage and click on it then on the bottom check the disable bottom > click on when it tells you that you have disabled it > now refresh windows update you should be able to get the updates at this point I hope i was helpful I am a pc tech, and I do this on all the pc's I repair.

Oh, btw, the full title would be "When Windows XP Genuine Advantage Flakes Out", but i like the abreviated version. :)

Windows Media Player Version Error

Yesterday I ran some of the security updates from Microsoft's update service. I also saw that there was a new version of Windows Media Player, so I decided, "hey, why not, i'll go ahead and install it while i'm here." What a waist of 45 minutes of my life.

The install seemed successful, so I started WMP. I was prompted through some wizard pages, make MWP the default player, etc, blah, blah, and then it finally tried to start the application. Immediately I received an error stating "wmplayer.exe has a version number of 10.0.0.3646 where 9.0.0.2980". I'm then offered the option to redownload/install the application; being on a broadband connection I say ok.

After download, installing, and going through the wizard once again, I'm presented with the same error. Not willing to try again, I googled and found the following good solution amongst a variety of more difficult solutions that may or may not have worked (i didn't want to try them).

Goto Start>> Run
Type "c:\windows\inf\unregmp2.exe /UpdateWMP"
Then simply restart WMP.

This was not my solution, so thanks goto Chris Lanier [MVP].