The Fox and the Grapes

This my story behind my XP SP2 upgrade. It does read like the Fox and the Grapes story.

Once upon a time, like everyone else, I was waiting for the SP2 which promises to make Windows more secure (I think it does a fairly good job. But that is not the story).

First, I first tried download it from microsoft.com and it wouldn't install as I did not have enough space to install!! Well, 400MB doesn't seem to be enough in my primary partition and few GB left in my other partitions.

Then I thought I could get around that this if I get my hands on the CD. Usually, you could get them at the building reception and so I tried. But it looked like that was the hot item and she told me that she didn't have any and referred me to some other building's reception which had a few copies. I was lazy enough to drive to the other bulding to get my copy. So I decided that I wouldn't bother upgrading it.

Couple of weeks passed and then came the internal event TechFest (or was it product fair?) were all the teams showcase the cool stuf they are working on. When I saw the XP SP2 booth, I ran towards it like a kid running towards a candy shop. I finally got a copy of the CD. Well my happiness did not last long. When I tried to install it, I was back to square one with the same "Not enough space" problem. I then told myself just like the fox that the grapes were sour anyway and never thought about it again.

Couple of weeks pass by without me not even thinking about this. One fine weekend, windows update kicked in and upgraded my machine w/o a glitch. I finally got my grapes.

Granted I have a old machine with all my hard disk filled up with crap, but I expected Microsoft to handle the upgrade much better which is very important to every one. In fact I uninstalled all my apps to cleanup disk space with no luck. I think we ought to get real and create solutions with real users and real scenarios in mind. I can't imagine how my mom would have upgraded to SP2 ever if she was in the exact situation. Long way to go Microsoft. You still are not listening as far as I can tell.