Memo: Regarding Vista

From: Alan Garnly, Deputy Mayor, Tilton, Washington
To: Jill Po, Microsoft Business Systems

cc: Bill and Lila's On-Time Computer Services
Tilton, Washington Volunteer Fire Brigade
King County Emergency Response
Peggy M'Butu, Federal Emergency Management Agency
Larry Mills, EPA Superfund
Senator Maria Cantwell
United Nations Disaster Relief Fund

RE: Microsoft Vista, Event, Follow-Up

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Jill, in our correspondence of 6 May, we covered most of the technical and factual details as what Vista did and why, and while I am satisfied that while there is a rational explanation for the event, I cannot begin to say that speaking in the capacity of Deputy Mayor of Tilton that this customer service issue has been resolved.

As the person who initiated the centralization and computer automation of city services, I bear a part of the responsibility, especially when I reflect that against FAA advice I had the system tied into our small cargo airport. If the carnage had been limited to that alone I think I would have been able to regard this as a tragic accident.

But as we all know, the town of Tilton no longer exists, at least not in habitable form.

Even as an international tv audience watched the resulting diaspora of Tiltonians to other cities and states, even overseas, I find that Microsoft has been less than satisfactorily responsive. I must strongly object with your characterization of this as "one solution."

Experiencing the event, the networking issue, which seems to have been central, impressed me for the way it seemed to allow instructions to go out which would create such devastation and chaos, but prevented instructions which might have otherwise been averted by hand-closing one valve and tripping one breaker.

The memory I will take from this event is cowering under my desk with my Dell laptop as the explosions rolled through the area like logs falling off a truck, followed by the incomparable sounds of the screaming engines of series of a dozen light aircraft whomping into the tangled, smoking machinery, a blue green mist peppering the glass outside with an unholy toxic spray, watching the little window that said "Windows is checking online for a solution" - a window I might add that I have seen regularly for nearly two years without it once saying "Windows has found a solution."

At this of all times, as the body of Mayor Bill McMillian dissolved before my eyes in the other room, that unlikely event of Vista actually finding a solution would have been particularly welcome.

I was left fecklessly pressing F5 147 times and expecting different results. There was some reduction in the increase of the number of explosions when I tried the Task Manager to close Office 2003, but I remain spectacularly unconvinced that an Vista upgrade would have helped.

Your coupon for a free Vista upgrade yesterday was appreciated, at least in the abstract.

The Congressional hearings are scheduled for 12 Nov, and I would really hope that we can work out some kind of reasonable agreement before that time or the movie begins filming the following Spring.