For those of you who are old enough to remember: Windows Update used to be a website that scanned your machine using an ActiveX control.

    • The very first time I used the Windows Update site I thought it was the coolest thing ever.

    • A decade later their miserable update process was one of the things that made me hug my Linux box, and cemented my rejection of Windows.

    • A decade after that (still responsible for supporting Windows at work) I could not believe how they’d managed to make it even worse, and continually found myself wondering how Windows users weren’t melting down their customer service lines with complaints.

    • Today I have to admit, “eh, it’s no package manager, but they seem to have made it a lot better.”

    Edit: I’m probably using the term “decade” slightly loosely there, but not too much.