About 10 years ago I bought a new car, a black Ford Mustang.  I drove it off the lot and continued to drive it for 5 years.  Ford never asked for it back to improve performance, or security, or to fix any bugs.  I turned the key and it went.  I put gas in it when it was empty, I drove it around Idaho and Oregon, and it never broke.  It was a quality machine, completely reliable, and usable, right from the factory.

About 5 years ago I bought a new preamp for my stereo, a Conrad-Johnson PV-10B.  The sound is amazing.  Right out of the box it improved my stereo in wonderful ways, and continues to sound ever gorgeous.  I bought a set of replacement tubes, but have yet to install them.  I just like to have them around, but they may not be needed for a while.  I've not had to upgrade the amp to improve performance or security, or to fix any flaws.  It just works.

Last week I installed Office 2007 on my computer.  It's slow as molasses.  A real dog of a product.  It's a pile of software that just runs like crap.  This morning I received the usual notice of Microsoft updates, and lo and behold, it was an update for Office 2007.  Apparently, Microsoft knows how to make Outlook faster.  No shit, guys, really?  You mean to tell me you had to wait for your customers to decide if it was slow instead of just not making it slow in the first place?

My problem with the whole concept of software updates is that they imply all software is a work in progress.  At some point I want the product done.  Microsoft sells their software as product, and when I buy a product I expect that product to be complete.  Yet somehow it never is.  I'm OK with OSS patches and upgrades, but if I paid for it, I want it sealed and done and usable with no further adjustment necessary.

I'm out of patience with security patches, bug fixes, performance upgrades, genuine advantage upgrades, malicious software removal tools, and all the other garbage Microsoft wants me to take a not insignificant part of a workday, each week, to apply to my computer.  As if their incompetence is somehow my fault, or as if I have paid to somehow be part of their development team, patching and fixing and fucking with their software as if I should care.

Listen to me now.  If you can't figure out how to build software that just works without ever having to touch it again, at least figure out how to create a patch that doesn't require a system restart.  I don't want to stop work mid-morning to reboot for yet-another-patch, and, being one of those oddballs that never really stops working, thus leaving things in progress or open all the time on my computer, I don't want to walk into the studio in the morning and find the computer has rebooted itself for yet-another-patch.

At this point I resolve only to turn off all automatic updates on all applications and the OS.  I'm done.  No more patches.  And if I get hacked, or otherwise exploited, I'll still blame Microsoft, fair or not.  I thinks it's time for all of us to say enough is enough.  No more patches!  Oh, and while I'm at it, I think I'll get rid of this Office 2007 nonsense as well.