How to Easily Configure a Microsoft Product

I think now understand how to configure Microsoft's products in such a way that they appeal to me intuitively.

Now, in the world of user interfaces, "intuitively" simply means that applications do what you're used to. In that sense, I suppose the only intuitively correct behavior among Microsoft applications would be frequent crashes, mangling of your documents, incorrect calculations in your spreadsheets, file conversion problems after service upgrades, intelligent help systems provided your IQ matches your room temperature, and so on. I suppose that in that sense I don't have to change anything.

However, I'm a Linux user at home, and while Linux applications often have their shortcomings that can often be traced to a nerdish lack of attention to the fact that non-programmers might use the applications as well, at least they rarely do something that appeals only to complete idiots. Except when they take a well throught through Linux distribution such as Ubuntu and decide to create a "Christian edition" of it, of course, but the Linux community has its share of dolts, too.

I want applications to not do my thinking for me based on others' heuristics. If my applications must do something anticipatory, at least they should seed their heuristic algorithms with my particular behavior, which I find just a little more intelligent than that of the broad market average Microsoft customer: I want my applications to do what I want, not what Mr. Average wants. Microsoft, on the other hand, wants its applications to do what Mr. Average wants, knowing that Mr. Average doesn't really know to begin with.

So there you have it. I basically want the opposite of what John Doe wants, and consequently what Microsoft wants him to want. This provides me with a perfect recipe for configuring my Microsoft products at work where unfortunately I have little choice in terms of my applications use.

The key is to invert all preselected options.

For example, when MSN Messenger recently proposed that I "learn more," that is, that I upgrade to the next, less insecure version, if presents me with installation options enabling MSN as a start page in Internet Explorer, and offers to harvest use data to use at Microsoft's discretion (not that I doubt it does anyway, but at least it gives you some artificial sense of the existence of company ethics). So I inverted these selections.

Next, MSN Messenger offered to install a blog writer, a mail access feature, one more toolbar, or an image gallery, which had all been selected for me. I might want some security features to be installed, but keeping its coding tradition, Microsoft had deselected that option. I inverted the selections once again.

Similarly, I've learned that any installation of a Microsoft product should involve a visit to the tab in the options window that was once named "Advanced" to practically invert all of the selections. The tabs have been ordered differently within recent years, distributing the options contributing to automated intelligence among multiple pages, making the task a little more cumbersome. It is still somewhat straight-forward to make the Microsoft products behave somewhat less stupidly than at their default configuration.

In Microsoft Word, look for anything that seems automated in the Options window. So for example, "Mail as attachment" may be safely left checked, because it does not seem like an unexpected, pseudo-intelligent move from Word. In contrast, correcting your typos as you type will lead to highly unexpected results, many of which will be undesired with the default dictionary, in particular if you are writing in another language than English. The letter 'i' means "in" or "inside" in my language, and I really don't want those words capitalized in mid-sentence. Oh, now I mention it, perhaps I should tell you that these options are no longer found in the "Options" window, but in the "Autocorrect Options" window. You may need to entertain yourself with a little explaration of the menus which may be found in the strangest of places.

Covering the entire options system of the various Microsoft products is far beyond the scope of any blog, and probably even beyond the scope of any but the most detailed users manual. There is instead a simple rule, which says:

"Invert any option that indicates automated behavior".

Following this rule will increase the chances that your Microsoft product will treat you as a reasonably intelligent being.