Category Archives: microsoft

.net, development, microsoft, tech, windows

Running Visual Studio 2008 in Windows 11

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One thing Microsoft is generally good about is keeping old applications running. Applications built with Visual Basic 6.0 (first released in 1998) still run well (in most cases) on the latest Windows.

I maintain an application which is not quite that old, but which was built with Visual Studio 2008 and .NET Framework 2.0. It still runs but needs modernizing and taking cross-platform.

I tried opening the project in Visual Studio 2026 but the automatic project conversion failed and it was proving difficult to fix up. Maybe it would be easier to keep it as-is and import it piecemeal to a new project, converting the database from Access MDB to SQLite along the way.

To this end, I decided to install Visual Studio 2008 on Windows 11. One can still download the trial from Microsoft as this Stack Overflow thread discusses, and upgrade to full if you have a valid key. I had to disable Windows 11 Smart App Control in order to mount the .iso files.

I installed both VS 2008 and the SP1 patch, as well as the MSDN library. Remarkably everything worked smoothly, with the exception of SQL Server 2005 (installed by default) which Windows warns will not work correctly.

My project loads and runs perfectly and the old Visual Studio is delightfully responsive to use.

One of the first things I did was to write code to export the MDB to SQLite, an important step forward in the modernization journey, and the task was completed in less than a day.

.net, microsoft, Notes from the field, software development, tech, windows

Getting started with Azure Artifact Signing

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Signing applications is a requirement for deploying a desktop or mobile application and can be fiddly. Microsoft’s Azure Artifact Signing always looked to me like a good solution in that the pricing is reasonable at $9.99 per month for up to 5,000 signings, and it is run by Microsoft so one would think that the certificates will be satisfactory for Windows users.

This week I got started with the service. Microsoft has a handy quickstart guide and the first thing to note is that availability is limited to USA and Canada for individual developers, or USA, Canada, EU and UK for organizations. Luckily I work for a small UK limited company so qualify as an organization.

I also noted that a pay as you go Azure subscription is required; if you have a sponsored subscription that will not work.

The first step is to create an Artifact Signing Account. Billing starts from when this account is created, even if you are unsuccessful in obtaining a signing certificate. Should this be the case, make sure to delete the account.

Next, check the roles assigned to the user that will operate the code signing. There are two: Artifact Signing Identity Verifier and Artifact Signing Certificate Profile Signer. I assigned them both to my Entra ID user.

Now there are two steps to obtaining a certificate profile. The first is Identity Validation. In my case this is for an organization; you will need a DUNS number, two valid email addresses, a functioning web site, and the first and last name of the individual that will use the service. The organization address should match the one recorded at Companies House, even if day to day work is done elsewhere.

The organization identity verification automatically progresses to individual identity verification. In my case this was done by a company called AU10TIX and I was able to use a UK driving licence.

Next I hit what looked like a roadblock. I received an email asking me to verify my email address; however clicking the link got me a web page stating “the request is blocked” and “service unavailable”. Thinking that perhaps the service was unavailable, I tried several times and on different networks. I am not the first to experience this. I was on the point of raising a support case when I got a further email advising that validation was complete.

Once identity validation is complete you can create a certificate profile. The type I need is called Public Trust. I had several mysterious failures with uninformative errors; I suspect this might be to do with non-unique profile names but no idea really. Again I was on the point of contacting support when I tried a new profile name and it worked.

The quickstart guide ends at this point and the next document you need is the one on setting up signing integrations. You will need a recent Windows SDK including SignTool.exe, the .NET 8.0 runtime, and the Azure Artifact Signing client tools, if like me you want to sign a Windows executable.

Then you need to create a JSON file traditionally called metadata.json, and a command to sign the file. The command will be lengthy so fire up Notepad or similar and put it in a .cmd file or similar. You need to discover the location of SignTool and the location of Azure.CodeSigning.Dlib.dll and note that there are different x64 and x86 versions.

The command includes a timestamp without which the code signing is useless as the certificate has a lifetime of just three days.

I carefully assembled the command and I am happy to report that it worked first time.

Output from code signing command

So far so good. The whole process is somewhat intricate but I am hoping this will prove a good solution for Windows.

microsoft, mobile, mono, software development, tech

No Mono in Microsoft’s cross-platform MAUI framework on .NET 11 – and a quick hands-on

Microsoft has released preview 6 of .NET 11, for which release is expected in November, including a big change to MAUI (Multi-platform App UI): it now runs only on .NET Core, rather than the Mono runtime.

Principal product manager David Ortinau reports that “your app builds and runs on CoreCLR, the same runtime behind ASP.NET Core, your cloud services, and desktop .NET.”

According to Ortinau, performance is generally faster than Mono on iOS and Mac Catalyst. The implication is that it is slower on Android, though he does say that it is within 10% on startup and app size. Selecting Mono is no longer an option, and the only use of Mono in .NET 11 is for Blazor WebAssembly.

There is a key remark in Ortinau’s post. “We have worked closely with first party .NET MAUI apps validating our progress, and have received feedback from several others,” he says. The question developers may ask: what first party .NET MAUI apps? Microsoft does not use MAUI for its well-known cross-platform apps such as Teams or Office. In 2023, the company said it uses MAUI for its 365 admin, Azure admin and Store Commerce apps, though I do not know if this is still the case.

Slide from .NET Conf 2023 showing some limited use of MAUI at Microsoft

Developers would have more confidence in MAUI, both for its quality and its long-term future, if Microsoft itself made more use of it.

That said, the company does seem to be putting substantial effort into MAUI for .NET 11. Along with the CoreCLR work there are other updates in this preview. Microsoft states that the focus in .NET 11 is “to improve product quality” and this is something developers will be happy about; in some cases a statement like this might imply neglect but for MAUI it is exactly what is needed.

I have a demo MAUI project and decided to upgrade it to the new preview, working with Visual Studio Code on a Mac. It was not as easy as I had hoped. The process involved not only updating the target framework, but also the minimum versions of Android, iOS and Mac Catalyst. Then the Android SDK had to be updated, with an annoyance related to the recommended:

dotnet build -t:InstallAndroidDependencies -f net11.0-android “-p:AndroidSdkDirectory=[your path to the Android SDKs]”

The command failed with an error about the Android SDK licenses not being accepted. The fix is to set an environment variable:

export AcceptAndroidSDKLicenses=True

and then it works, though I’m not sure how this satisfies the lawyers. I also had an error where

builder.Logging.AddDebug();

could not find the AddDebug method; the fix was to add a package reference to Microsoft.Extensions.Logging.Debug to the .csproj file.

With all that done, the “Start debugging” command is not working for me in VS Code. I get a message that the “configured debug type ‘coreclr_mobile’ is not supported, and an instruction to install coreclr_mobile Extension; clicking this button gets me “no extensions found.” Update – this was resolved after updating both the C# and C# Dev Kit extensions to pre-release versions (.NET MAUI was already pre-release).

However, dotnet run from the command line works:

Demo of MAUI using .NET 11 Preview 6 on a Mac

I plan to do some more experimentation; note that this is a preview of .NET so some friction is expected.

.net, microsoft, professional, software development, tech

JetBrains Resharper for Visual Studio Code adds C# debugging support

One of the oddities of Microsoft’s Visual Studio Code is that it is free to use for almost anything other than the company’s own .NET platform. That is, there is nothing to stop developers from coding in C# with VS Code and using the .net command-line tools without paying Microsoft for a license; but the official C# Dev Kit extension requires a license for teams of 6 developers or more:

For personal, academic, and open-source projects, C# Dev Kit can be used at no cost. For commercial purposes, teams of up to 5 can also use the C# Dev Kit at no cost. For 6+ developers, those users will need a Visual Studio Professional (or higher) subscription.

In addition, there are licensing restrictions on Microsoft’s .NET debugger which impact VS Code forks:

The C# extension for Visual Studio Code includes the Microsoft .NET Core Debugger (vsdbg). Unlike VS Code, and most other parts of the .NET Core ecosystem, vsdbg is not an open source product but rather is a proprietary part of Visual Studio. It is licensed to work only with IDEs from Microsoft — Visual Studio Code, Visual Studio, or Visual Studio for Mac.

JetBrains has now introduced C# debugging support for the ReSharper VS Code extension, which means there is now another high quality option for developers who either prefer not to use the C# Dev Kit, or are using a VS Code fork such as AWS Kiro, Cursor, Windsurf or Google Antigravity, for which the official .NET debugger is not licensed.

ReSharper is free for non-commercial use, or costs £119.00 ($149.00) per year for an individual or £295.00 ($389.00) per year for developers working for an organization. The cheapest standalone Visual Studio Professional plan is currently $540.00 per year, though some developers will get it bundled with other plans.

Leaving aside licensing and cost considerations, how does ReSharper compare to C# DevKit and the Microsoft .NET debugger? I have yet to use ReSharper so do not have a personal opinion; but will note that Microsoft’s recent change which removed the Solution Explorer is unpopular.

Finally, my personal view is that Microsoft has more to gain by making .NET and its tooling fully open, than by playing games with licensing restrictions in an effort to keep developers hooked to Visual Studio or VS Code.

development, javascript, microsoft, tech

TypeScript 7 is done

Principal product manager Daniel Rosenwasser reports that TypeScript 7 is now generally available – a big release, since this is the first to have the native port of the TypeScript compiler built in Go. Rosenwasser claims “speedups between 8x and 12x on full builds.”

There is a snag. Although TypeScript 7 is production-ready, it has no API; that will not come until TypeScript 7.1. It may come as a surprise to you that TypeScript has an API; it is not something highlighted in the TypeScript docs. You will find it covered in the official Wiki where there is an article on using the compiler API dated October 2023 and advising that “this is not yet a stable API.”

Despite the compiler API being somewhat obscure, Rosenwasser says this means that “workflows that use Vue, MDX, Astro, Svelte, and others will likely not yet be able to leverage TypeScript 7. Similarly, specialized type-checking within templates like Angular will also likely not use TypeScript 7.” That is a significant blocker to adoption.

The dedicated TypeScript 7/0 extension for Visual Studio Cdde

Users of Visual Studio Code should install the dedicated TypeScript 7.0 extension which already has enthusiastic reviews. “Saves us lots of time in CI/CD. The difference in speed is huge!” said one.

Personally I now use TypeScript rather than JavaScript almost exclusively, when targeting browser scripting, and will endeavour to switch to 7.0 immediately. I would much rather have the compiler find errors, than have them turn up in production.

.net, microsoft, tech

Avalonia UI vs Microsoft’s .NET MAUI

What framework to choose for a cross-platform .NET GUI application continues to be awkward, with multiple good-ish options but no obvious first choice.

The three leading contenders are Microsoft’s MAUI (multi-platform app UI), third-party Avalonia UI, and third-party Uno Platform.

Joseph Tomkinson, head of software engineering at the British Heart Foundation, has an excellent post on the pros and cons of MAUI vs Avalonia UI, noting the fundamental difference that MAUI wraps native controls while Avalonia UI does all its own rendering. Tomkinson argues that MAUI has stronger mobile support (since this has only come recently to Avalonia) but that Avalonia has advantages in consistency, desktop performance, and Linux support.

A concern with Avalonia UI has been the drift towards important features becoming commercial-only, not unreasonable but a barrier to adoption for some developers. That has improved though since a sponsor appeared to fund Avalonia open-source development. CEO Mike James (formerly at Xamarin and then Microsoft) has posted about the difference this has made.

According to James, the Avalonia UI team has more than doubled, to 20 people, and now includes a QA lead. He says usage is growing:

“In the whole of 2025, Avalonia projects were built over 122 million times. In the first six months of 2026 alone, that figure has already passed 410 million.”

I am not sure exactly what this metric is counting – telemetry every time a developer builds a project? – but presuming it is like with like, that is impressive.

On the MAUI side though, one thing Tomkinson notes is that third-party components are more widely available, because it is an official Microsoft framework, and that quality is much better now than it was early on.

The BigCorp factor is not entirely in MAUI’s favour though. Microsoft might change direction and decide MAUI is no longer important, particularly as its own internal usage of the framework still seems minimal.

I am inclined to try building an example project in both frameworks to get my own feel for which would work best.

microsoft, tech

Microsoft authenticator cannot be backed up for Microsoft or Entra ID accounts

Multi-factor authentication (MFA) improves on username/password authentication by requiring the user to have a second proof of identity, traditionally “something you have” as well as “something you know.” In the Microsoft ecosystem MFA is typically implemented using an app called Microsoft Authenticator which generates one-time passwords (codes), used in addition to a password to sign in, or passwordless authentication where a request is sent to the authenticator app. The user enters a number displayed by the service they are signing into.

What happens though if you lose or replace your phone (iPhone or Android) that has the authenticator app on it? Microsoft has a post explaining how to restore account credentials from Microsoft Authenticator. The instructions differ for iOS and Android. They work for any codes you have set up in Authenticator for third-party accounts where you have configured MFA with the app.

One should pay attention though to the paragraph entitled: what account information is restored in Authenticator. In particular, for Microsoft personal accounts:

If the account also provides passwordless sign-in, then only the account name is backed up. When you restore, you will need to sign in again.

and for Work or school accounts, also known as Entra ID:

Only the account name is restored. When you restore, you will need to sign in again.

What does it mean, “you will need to sign in again?” How will you do this if you have lost access to the Authenticator which you backed up and restored?

The answer depends on whether any other authentication methods have been set up for the account. When the authenticator method fails, you can tap “Sign in another way” or “I can’t use my Microsoft Authenticator app right now”. If you have a phone number set up, it can send a code there instead (often by WhatsApp rather than SMS).

If you don’t have another authentication method set up, you cannot sign in. Contact your administrator.

You are the administrator? If you are the only global administrator for the Entra ID tenancy, you will have to call Microsoft’s Data Protection helpline and hope that you can prove your identity sufficiently that you can sign back in.

See here for an official response to this problem:

Therefore, if you are the only administrator in your organization, then you need to involve Microsoft data protection team. Please try to find the related hotline number to call the frontline let them raise a ticket for you: Customer service phone numbers – Microsoft Support 

It seems odd to me that Microsoft provides the ability to backup and restore all the Authenticator accounts except the ones it provides itself. And that when users register for MFA they are not able to to get recovery codes for that account.

licensing, microsoft, office 365, tech

New Outlook confusion as connection to Exchange Online or Business Basic mailboxes blocked “due to the license provided by your work or school”

What Microsoft gives with one hand, it removes with the other; or so it seemed for users of paid Exchange Online accounts when the company said that “for years, Windows has offered the Mail and Calendar apps for all to use. Now Windows is bringing innovative features and configurations of the Microsoft Outlook app and Outlook.com to all consumers using Windows – at no extra cost, with more to come”.

That post in September 2023 does not mention a significant difference that was introduced with this new Outlook. It is all to do with licensing. Historically, Outlook was always the email client for Exchange, and this is now true for Exchange Online, the email component of Microsoft 365. Microsoft’s various 365 plans for business are differentiated in part by whether or not users purchase a subscription to the desktop Office applications. Presuming though that the user had some sort of license for Outlook, whether from a 365 plan, or from a standalone purchase of Office, they could add their Exchange Online email account to Outlook, even if that particular account was part of a plan that did not include desktop Outlook.

Some executive at Microsoft must have thought about this and decided that with Outlook becoming free for everyone, this would not do. Therefore a special check was added to Outlook: if an account is a business account that does not come with a desktop license for Outlook, block it. The consequence was that users upgrading or trying to add such an account saw the message:

“This account is not supported in Outlook for Windows due to the license provided by your work or school. Try to login with another account or go to Outlook on the web.”

The official solution was to upgrade those accounts to one that includes desktop Outlook. That means at least Microsoft 365 Business Standard at $12.50 per month. By contract, Microsoft 365 Business Basic is $6.00 per month and Exchange Online Plan 1 just $4.00 per month.

Just occasionally Microsoft makes arbitrary and shockingly bad decisons and this was one of them. What was wrong with it? A few things:

  • Administrators of 365 business tenancies were given no warning of the change
  • Exchange Online is supposedly still an email server. Email is an internet standard – though there are already standards issues with Exchange Online such as the requirement for OAuth authentication and SMTP disabled by default. See Mozilla’s support note for Thunderbird, for example. However, Exchange Online accounts still worked with other mail clients such as Apple Mail and eM Client; only Outlook now added this licensing requirement.
  • The new Outlook connected OK to free accounts such as Microsoft’s Outlook.com and to other email services. It was bewildering that a Microsoft email client would connect fine to other services both free and paid, but not to Microsoft’s own paid email service.
  • The description of the Exchange Online service states that “Integration with Outlook means they’ll enjoy a rich, familiar email experience with offline access.” This functionality was removed, meaning a significant downgrade of the service without notification or price reduction.
  • Some organisations have large numbers of Exchange Online accounts – expecting them suddenly to change all the plans to another costing triple the amount, to retain functionality they had before, is not reasonable.
Image from Exchange Online product description showing how it highlights Outlook integration as one of its features
The product description for Exchange Online highlights Outlook integration as one of its features

Users did the only thing they can do in these circumstances and made a public fuss. This long and confusing thread was the result, with comments such as:

The takeaway is: You can no longer add a mail account in the new Outlook if said mail account doesn’t come with its OWN Outlook (apps) license. This is ridiculous beyond understanding. Unacceptable to the point that if they don’t fix this, I’ll cancel BOTH Exchange licenses and move over to Google Business with my domains.

There was also a well reasoned post in Microsoft Feedback observing, among other things, that “At no point is Business Basic singled out as a web-only product in any of the Microsoft Terms or Licensing documents.” 

The somewhat good news is that Microsoft has backtracked, a bit. This month, over 4 months after the problem appeared, the company posted its statement on “How licensing works for work and school accounts in the new Outlook for Windows.” The company now says that there will be a “capability change in the new Outlook for Windows”, rolled out from the start of this month, following which a licensed version of Outlook will work with Exchange Online, Business Basic and similar accounts, provided that an account with a desktop license is set as the primary account. This includes consumer accounts:

“If you have a Business Standard account (which includes a license for desktop apps) added as your primary account, that license will apply, and you can now add any secondary email accounts regardless of licensing status (e.g. Business Basic). This also applies to personal accounts with a Microsoft 365 Personal or Family, as these plans include the license rights to the Microsoft 365 applications for desktop. Once one of these accounts is set as the primary account, you can add Business Basic, E1 or similar accounts as secondary accounts.”

This is a substantial improvement and removes most but not all of the sting of these changes.

microsoft, tech, Uncategorized, windows, windows 7

What is an operating system for? A friend’s Windows 11 rant shows disconnect between vendors and users

What is an operating system? The traditional definition is something like, the system software that manages computer hardware and provides services for applications.

This definition does not describe what you get though when you install an “operating system” such as macOS, Windows, Android or ChromeOS – or more likely, receive hardware with it pre-installed. What you get is an operating system (OS) plus a ton of stuff that can only be described as applications. In practice, the reach of what we call an operating system has extended over the years. Even in the early days, an OS would come with utilities, including a command line, a command line editor, perhaps a C compiler, file management tools and so on. Then there was a change when pre-installed graphical user interfaces arrived. Windows came with Notepad, Calculator, Write and Paint.

What is a commercial operating system today? We can add to the traditional definition at least the following:

  • A vehicle for advertising
  • A means of lock-in
  • A vehicle for data collection

On Windows, advertising is everything from the pre-installed trials, to the nagging to upgrade OneDrive, to the mysterious appearance of Candy Crush on the Start menu.

The lock-in comes via the ecosystem. Apple is worse than Windows for this in that more of its applications work only on Apple operating systems. On Windows though Microsoft hardly has to bother since a huge legacy of Windows-only applications keeps users from changing, especially in business.

Data collection is via near-enforced login and telemetry. An Apple ID is not required for macOS but it is strongly encouraged and necessary for the App Store. A Microsoft or Entra ID account is not required to use Windows, but the setup points you strongly in that direction.

Is any of this good for the user? A friend is disappointed with Windows 11 – mainly because it is less familiar than Windows 10. His central points are that Microsoft makes irritating changes that disrespect the learning users have invested in Windows, and has left behind the notion of the operating system as a blank canvas waiting for applications to make it useful.

Personally I put up with Windows 11; it is not that different, though there are a few things that I particularly dislike:

  • The taskbar icons in the centre. I routinely move them to the left. Settings – Personalisation – Taskbar – Taskbar behaviors – Taskbar alignment, no registry editing required. This single change makes Windows 11 feel much more familiar, and it is better since left-aligned icons are easier to target.
  • The Start menu. This was great in Windows 95 and improved up until Windows 7. Windows 8 replaced it for … reasons. Windows 10 reinvented it but badly. I have trained myself always to click All apps as a second step after clicking Start. Click on a letter for the letter menu, select a letter, start the app. It works reliably, unlike Search which is a usability disaster when what you want is to start an application.
  • The File Explorer. You right click a file, and instead of a single menu of options, there are three sets of options, one in a row of icons, one in a mysterious subset of options, and one under Show more options. A poor user interface for a common task.

There are other things, of course. I always turn off the distracting Widgets on the taskbar. I always show as many of the “additional System tray icons” as I can, with the exception of consumer Teams. I always open Edge, reflect on the cheap ugly mess that is the default home page, and set about disabling it.

These annoyances are mainly design errors by Microsoft rather than an a direct consequence of the changing role of the operating system; yet they would be impossible without that change.

Imagine for a moment if Windows were optimised for installing and running applications. Oddly, Windows 8 (which most hated for more or less the same reasons my friend cites for disliking Windows 11) did have that vision. Install from the Store, with clean setup and easy removal. Run full-screen with no distractions. Before you say it, yes there were issues, the UI was not good enough, the apps were not there, we missed multiple overlapping windows, and more. There was a good concept in there though.

microsoft, tech, windows

Windows 11 rant: “I replaced Win 11 with Win 10. It was like walking back into my house”

A friend purchased a Windows 11 laptop and this was his reaction, slightly edited. It caused me some reflection on what is an operating system, which I have posted separately. I also note: Windows 10 goes out of support in October 2025.

“I recently bought a Win 11 laptop. I was stunned. I must apologise for what follows, but it actually made me quite angry to realise that the Chief Product Manager at Microsoft clearly has NO understanding of ‘opportunity costs’, thus wasting millions of our ‘person-hours’ worldwide.

“For many years I worked in health research, where we realised a decade or two ago that something doesn’t just have to give better results to be worth implementing. It’s got to be SUFFICIENTLY better to offset the cost of implementing the change. If you start something new that ‘works better’ but in doing so, fail to consider the additional costs involved in everyone changing how they do things, professional and patient, to not just know but understand how & why the new thing is better it is very easy to end up with everything working worse than before. NEW must be > (OLD + Opportunity Costs). Ideally a lot greater, if you want to bring people with you. This isn’t rocket science, not anymore.

“I get that most IT correspondents are professionals used to having to plough through new Operating Manuals (pdf, sure) every two years, but out here in Userland I am far too busy doing interesting stuff with my computer & applications. Over a few years I learnt where the main knobs & levers of Win 10 are. And haven’t thought about it since. So, for Microsoft to carelessly move everything, just because they believe the new setup will be quicker/easier/more efficient for me is not only staggeringly rude, but stupid.

“Consider: It probably only took me a few hundred hours of use of Win 10 to learn where all the OS stuff was to the point where it was automatic. Since then the OS stuff has usually required no conscious input at all, like riding a bike. Some things might not be easy to find, but once you know, you know. Then along comes Win 11, and all this stuff is a pain in the arse again, nothing is where it used to be. So I don’t CARE if, in theory, the new arrangements are easier to use ONCE YOU KNOW THEM, my point is, why should I, and (hundreds of) millions of other Windows users, have to re-learn all that sh*t?

“IT’S JUST AN OPERATING SYSTEM! (Can someone at Microsoft put up posters?)

“I’m not interested in it! It’s the environment in which the things I AM interested in – applications – video editors, DAWs, office apps etc.- live. Don’t f*ck with it. How would you feel if suddenly you had to learn to speak & walk again, just because someone thought they knew a better way to do these things?

“And consider the hundreds of hundreds of millions of person hours you are WASTING, as we have to re-learn where things are? Double-click when before we had to single click. Settings moved somewhere completely different. Even where on the screen to look: Does Microsoft not employ a single behavioural psychologist who could tell them how much time (and attention) is wasted when you move something that was always bottom left to top middle?

“And then, the final straw: I found that most of these maddening ‘I’m bored, let’s change grass from to green to blue’ ‘improvements’ can be reversed, just by editing the registry. It was only on my fifth edit, I realised what was going on. The old ways of doing things, that I’d invested serious time in learning about to the point where they were automatic, were STILL THERE! It’s just that someone Microsoft couldn’t even raise their eyes from Tiktok (or whatever was distracting them), to add a few lines of code, to make the previous ways of operating, accessible via a menu. Remember them? You put the user in charge? Of their own computer? The very thought…

“At that point I realised that Microsoft’s institutional memory had, ironically, forgotten why Bill Gates got so rich in the first place. Let’s recall – IBM agreed to let him licence rather than sell his OS for their new, pathetically under-powered ‘Personal Computer’, because they thought it would be a small market. I mean, who would want to use a desktop PC , when they could use a terminal to access a mainframe with a brain the size of a planet (sorry, Doug)? History tells us they then discovered, too late, that the Mk.1 Human Being prefers under-powered personal computers over high-powered mainframes, for the same reason we all prefer living in small chaotic houses to living in large, well-organised institutions.

“So I replaced Win 11 with Win 10. It was like walking back into my house. Subsequently, in a typical working day I no longer had to expend any further conscious thought on operating the Operating System – because I learnt how to do that years ago. And then got back to the interesting stuff.”