Congratulations, you’ve been Bingled!

Welcome to the new Office 365! All of us at Microsoft are pleased to inform you that we have updated your webmail client user interface overnight while you slept. We know you didn’t have time to ask for these changes yourself because you’ve been so very busy diligently learning how to use our previous interface, so we’ve gone right ahead and given you exactly what you need now. No, no need to thank us, really!

Enjoy the new Office 365 — aptly named, because we have changed 365 features of the user interface in order to strengthen your mental focus and attention with mystery navigation challenges, and to enhance your physical fitness through repeated forearm and hand motions due to increased mouse clicking and longer roaming trails. Where it took only a single mouse click to accomplish some everyday tasks in the past, we guarantee a minimum of four clicks today to perform the same function — but only after you figure out where we moved the feature! We’ve even pre-entered you in the Biggest Loser Pound for Pound Challenge, tracking and tallying each calorie burned with every move and click! See how much we care for you?

Aren’t you just tickled pink with delight? Of course you are, and we already knew that, too; our vast team of user experience experts are waaay smarter than you are, so we know how much you absolutely love the fabulous new look and hidden features. Plus, the new Outlook 365 contains a pioneering, state-of-the-art HTML5 virtual webcam (the Social Heuristic Automatic Feedback Tool) — so we can see your happy face while you read this notice. Say “Cheese!”

You can opt out of getting the SHAFT at any time by deactivating the tool in the Settings Tab above. Access to the Settings Tab requires a Premium Access subscription. If you have a Professional or Enterprise subscription, double-click the kruller and then drag your mouse vertically down the empty space next to… No, no, no! Double-click, then drag! Argh, you’re doing it all wrong! The other one. Right over there… That one; the kruller. No, not that one — that’s a strawberry parfait. There. Next to the screw. In the corner! What are you, stupid?! Not the gear! Listen to us… Oh, never mind. Yes, sure, click that one, the one we told you not to click before. Ha! See, we told you not to click that one! You just deleted all your email. How’s that workin’ for you? Ready to listen to us now?

No, put your hand down. You don’t need to use finger gestures to interact with the Feedback Tool; it uses facial recognition and masking tonal derivatives. Although… interesting idea… finger recognition might just be the next big thing… Hmmm. What action is that finger movement supposed to represent? —— Oh, are you OK? Your face has gone from tickled pink to beet red…

Hold on; we’re installing a Virtual Medic to assist you… To activate it, hold down the key with the old 2003 Windows logo, click the 2010 Windows logo that resembles a box without windows, and drag it onto the 2013-version logo that looks like a 2006 Apple iPod Shuffle. No! The apple, not the strawberry parfait again!

Oh, never mind…

Legalese: For online safety and privacy, owners of any non-Microsoft products or services will be required to deactivate the Feedback Tool every 15 minutes. Reactivation occurs automatically every ten minutes for owners of iPhones (which we can see right there on the desk next to you). Failure to deactivate the Feedback Tool feature within the alloted time will result in automatic reactivation. Excess or repeated deactivation may result in the deletion of random emails. Use of Microsoft Outlook for sending or receiving email is not supported in a networked environment.

I like a clean computer. Thanks to prolific security patches from Microsoft, there are hundreds of files and folders cluttering up my Windows folder, forcing me to wade through garbage every time I search for something. How do you safely clean them up without messing up the already fragile operating system?

© Richard D. LeCour

First, what is all that junk? The $NTUninstall directories are created after the installation of a Microsoft Service Pack, a software hotfix, or a security update. They contain the uninstall information for each of the Microsoft updates, therefore if you delete the files and folders you will be unable to uninstall the updates. The corresponding log files are files that show the details of all the changes made during the patch installation. But if you simply delete them, Windows still has a record of them and expects them to be there.

If you have a registry cleaning tool such as CrapCleaner, you can simply delete the folders and run the cleaning tool.

If you can’t (or don’t want to) install a registry cleaning tool, here’s how to safely remove the $NTUninstall folders manually:

1. Delete selected $NTUninstallKB folders. The names will look like $NtUninstallKB822603$ and $NtUninstallKB899587$. Keep track of the numbers after the KB of the folders you delete. Usually they’re sequential so hopefully you can just jot down a range, but there will always be a few outlying exceptions.
2. Open the registry editor, and navigate to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE -> Software -> Microsoft -> Windows -> CurrentVersion -> Uninstall.
3. Find the keys for each of the folders you deleted, and delete them, too. No way to do them in bulk, unfortunately. However, you can get a nice repeating rhythm of DEL, ENTER, DEL, ENTER. Just don’t forget to stop!
4. Delete the desired KBNNNNNN.log files from the Windows folder.

Leave mentions of the updates within HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Updates alone. These mentions of the patches indicate that the patches have been properly installed. Removing these keys will confuse Windows into thinking that the patches have not been completed. Your only remedy after that point would be to reinstall the patches. Safer just to ignore them.

With just a couple minutes of effort, I’ve just freed up 400MB on my laptop, and another 500MB on one of my desktops!

Windows is such a terrible (un)operating system that I find myself at least once a year having to wipe a computer I don’t care much about and reinstall everything rather than trying to solve whatever particular problem has surfaced — a procedure in stark contrast to troubleshooting my main, daily-use computers for which I will do whatever it takes to avoid a reinstall.

Microsoft compounds difficulties further, limiting the number of times you can try to recover from their self-made messes, and requiring activation of a poorly performing O/S that I’d frankly rather replace with anything created by the dumbest Apple engineer. Yet, for hopefully only the short term, I am forced — thanks to a tech budget recently blown on camera gear — to stick with Microshaft.

So, here I am, in my dining room, trying to resurrect my daughter’s computer. No, I do not want to activate or register my computer online for the umpteenth time. I just want to reinstall and go — and, in order to do so, I’m invoking a little-known secret.

The Secret

Located in the \i386\unattend.txt file on your installation CD is a product ID that resembles a registration key (not the same thing!) that sometimes allows you to activate your computer and skip the registration process when you use it instead of the registration key printed on your genuine Microsoft product packaging. It’s often hit or miss; some IDs work and others don’t.

Now, with any luck, you can stick it to the big guy in Redmond by refusing to re-activate your already registered product!