There’s an old saying… one which Microsoft keeps forgetting, and which keeps being proven true, over and over and over again. And Microsoft keeps on demonstrating that they’re the proof of another old saying… “insanity is doing the same thing, over and over, and expecting a different result.”

The first saying… “If it ain’t broke, don’t ‘fix’ it.”

There was absolutely NOTHING WRONG with the existing “Microsoft Flight Simulator” product model. They have, repeatedly, made actual improvements to the program, over the years, while keeping the same basic “model” which we all liked enough to keep buying, revision after revision, just to get the improvements.

I own MS FS 6 (the last “DOS” version) and almost every version since then. I actually have them all installed, still, and all but the ’98 version run perfectly fine today (the problem with the 98 version is with the program’s inability to recognize USB-based controllers… or at least MY USB controllers, I suppose).

This was the first product cycle I made a conscious decision to ignore. Why? Because it offered me nothing I didn’t already have… and removed a great many things I really like, and want. All in favor of a new “cash generation model” which, clearly, didn’t work out as well as they’d hoped.

They did the same thing with Microsoft Money (eventually being forced, through legal pressure, to release a FREE version of the final release, not requiring activation). It’s remarkable how short-sighted they were in that case, not realizing how many people were about to lose their entire FINANCIAL HISTORY. (but, mind you, teaching a valuable lesson about becoming beholden to a software manufacturer’s whims in the process)

They’ve done the same thing with their various OS releases, recently… ie, since XP. The “new” UI may be something some users like, but many others hate it (myself included) because it is less usable for how we use our computers. Vista, for all its failings, at least left us the OPTION of using the “classic” UI… and the “classic search”… but WIn7, though a far improved OS overall, forces the user to go along with what someone else (at Microsoft) tells us we need to do.

Microsoft is arrogant. They don’t listen to what the customers ask for, they tell the customers “here’s what you’ll get, and you’ll like it… or else.” They make claims, like they have about Win7 (“it’s impossible to use the older UI with this system” or “it’s impossible to have the older search functionality”… claims proven false in short order by resourceful programmers within weeks of MS making these patently false claims), and then tell us that we have to accept what they’ve served us.

Well, MS Flight is another example of why MS is making HORRIBLE managerial-level decisions. WIndows 8 is even worse… and both will, inevitably, lead to customers refusing to “eat their brussell sprouts” and instead refusing to “upgrade” at all, or moving to alternative systems when upgrading becomes necessary and appropriate.

Am I the only one who remembers “Where do you want to go today,” and the customer response to that… “Where does Microsoft want you to go today?”

Seems that Redmond has forgotten this again. Guess we, the consumers, will need to explain it to them again, huh?