HowTo:Prevent Microsoft from ruining your life

Today, I have the dubious "honor" (foisted on me by the increasingly bureaucratic research staff of the Uncyclopedic community) of being tasked with writing up a brand-new HowTo article about "How to prevent Microsoft from ruining your life". Unfortunately, I am not quite up to the daunting task, as will become painfully clear long before this vitriolic screed has run its inevitable course. Unlike most canonical "HowTo" entries which are brimming over with nuggets of timeless wisdom, don't expect for a moment anything you find on this page is likely to be in any way helpful to your pathetic situation. The only consolation of having this here article taking advantage of the Uncyclopedia's free valuable storage space is to commiserate and wallow in the collective self-pity of endlessly frustrated computerphiles everywhere. Nothing against Microsoft, of course.

This is a photograph of a man yelling at a computer. Expressing rage at inanimate objects is occasionally a good way of relieving pent-up stress.

How do I block Microsoft from installing stuff I don't want?

You can't. What with tech support soon to end for everything on God's Green Earth except for Windows 10 Windows 11, your cherished computer will be slavishly enthralled to download cryptically-titled upgrades whether you want them or not. The vast majority of these so-called "upgrades" from now unto the end of eternity will each contain dozens of pointless applications that no sane human would ever continue to use after his or her first horrifying experience with any of them. Be prepared to have long unending arguments with your computer over why you can't uninstall things that do nothing but take up colossal amounts of memory on your hard drive, let alone hog huge chunks of working memory and processing power. These totally unvital processes will be forever running in the background and forever spawning child processes like an invasive species on Viagra, no matter how hard you try to exterminate them with Task Manager. And you thought a plague of zombies could be anywhere near as bad. Thanks, Microsoft.

How do I stop Microsoft from rebooting my computer at the worst possible time?

You can't. Microsoft has superior stealth technology which monitors exactly how many steps you are away from your computer terminal at all times. You can absolutely trust that Microsoft will give you precisely what they consider "fair warning" through a barely legible pop-up in the bottom-right corner of your screen, along with a threatening countdown display designed to put you in sheer panic mode. Ever had the experience of trying like hell to disarm a ticking time bomb planted in the landing gear compartment of an airborne jumbo jet on the verge of running out of fuel? One false keystroke and the whole thing is likely to blow up in your face. By the time you can figure out exactly what you need to do to avert total disaster, it's too damned late. Grab the popcorn, it's time to watch the no-frills unchanging monochromatic screen showing "Installing critical update: 2% finished (do not touch your computer with any part of your body)" with that stupid swirling dots indicator going around and around and around for what seems like hours on end while your career-oriented productivity goes down the tubes. Then, just when it seems like your suffering is nearing a merciful end, your computer turns off, then comes back on with "Please wait while we turn your computer off and back on a hundred times at completely random intervals". Watching dry paint getting drier is far more exciting at this point. When you are finally allowed to log on and get back to your desktop screen, the initial sluggishness persists solely to irritate you beyond belief. Talk about adding insult to injury. Thanks, Microsoft.

How do I get assistance from Microsoft if I have a computer-related problem?

Is it my imagination, or have personal computers become substantially dumbed-down since I was a kid?

You can't. Microsoft has hired the best and brightest software technicians to take advantage of the latest developments in artificial stupidity. You can be sure that whatever you type into Microsoft's ever-present cartoony-faced "How can I assist you today?" text-input bot, no matter how clear-cut and to-the-point your queries are, the returned canned responses could not possibly be any more unrelated to your queries. You might as well be typing in a fictional language that you yourself invented whole-cloth two minutes ago for all the good it will do. If you think that's bad, try navigating through their infernal troubleshooting routine. The world's worst spaghetti code was never this hopelessly entangled with itself. Don't be surprised if the first "helpful" suggestion that comes your way is "Is your computer plugged in?" HOW COULD IT NOT BE PLUGGED IN IF I'M ACTIVELY CLICKING THROUGH YOUR TROUBLESHOOTER??? OF COURSE IT'S PLUGGED IN YOU BRAINLESS ASSWIPES!!! MY GOD WHO WRITES THESE INANE SCRIPTS, AN OCTOGENARIAN WITH ALZHEIMERS OR SOMETHING??? Heaven helps you if you can manage to get an actual humanoid typing messages to you from the other end of Microsoft's smarmy help site, whom more likely than not will have less knowledge about computers than you do. My eight-year-old nephew probably has more knowledge about computers than the entirety of Microsoft's helpless help-department combined, but unfortunately, he's not available to help you at this time (off somewhere doing kid-related stuff, I gather). If you are forced to invest in a new computer at this point, you can be assured that you will soon realize just how effective a crushing monopoly can be. Thanks, Microsoft.

How do I prevent Microsoft from ruining my life?

You can't. Get over it. Or re-engineer a brand new lifestyle for yourself. I hear that libraries (with real books) are making a comeback. No thanks to Microsoft.

External links

• Microsoft's official website (please don't take this the wrong way, anybody!)
• How to Keep Microsoft from Installing Edge (Chromium) on Your PC (i can't believe somebody had the sheer audacity to write this)