What am I?
Microsoft software (Windows and Office)
I am a creator,
This is a little weak, but
- Microsoft software (and, in particular, Microsoft Office) has facilitated the creation of innumerable documents, and maybe a handful of works of art,
- Microsoft Corporation has created thousands of jobs for developers and sysadmins (and computer security professionals!)
- Microsoft software creates headaches and chaos.
and can also destroy.
Buggy Microsoft software has destroyed thousands of hours of work.
Sometimes you can feel me,
When you’re in the Command Prompt, the Control Panel (including the countless dialogs and options panels that descend from there), Windows Explorer, or Office, you are (sometimes painfully) aware that you are wrestling with a Microsoft product.
and at times you can’t.
When you’re in a browser, you can sometimes ignore the local computer environment and focus on the web site you’re visiting.
When you’re in a virtual machine, you can sometimes ignore the host operating system and focus on your VM.
(Likewise when you’re connected to a remote computer.)
Other applications (e.g., games) can similarly absorb your attention.
I help people stuck in the rat race
selflessly with panache and grace.
Microsoft Office enables white-collar workers to produce the documents that their jobs require.
Earlier versions of Microsoft Office included an “office assistant” (by default, Clippy the paperclip, although other avatars were available) to help users do their jobs.
The novice get daunted by my mess,
Microsoft software comes with a steep learning curve.
People who had been using Microsoft Office for years took weeks to relearn it when Office 2007 (with the ribbon) was released.
And, speaking of “mess” — have you seen the registry?
but the knowledgeable admire it.
The argument has been made that the registry is preferable to having thousands of .INI
files and other config files scattered all over the file system.
The standardization of the user interface (wherever you go, Ctrl+C is “copy” and Ctrl+V is “paste”, etc.) has drawn praise.
And people who’ve been brainwashed acclimatized and accustomed by long exposure begin to find it natural.
You’ve discouraged my evolutionary process.
People resist change.
Look at Super User to see the efforts people are going through to resist being upgraded to Windows 10.
When Windows 8 came out, people said, “Bring back the Windows 7 Start Menu.”
When Office 2007 came out, people said, “Bring back our File
, Edit
and View
menus (like what Notepad, Windows Explorer and Internet Explorer still have).”
I am not precious (I’m very common) …
Microsoft seems to be the most pervasive software company around (especially after they’ve either acquired or destroyed so much of their competition).
Windows is pre-loaded on many computers, and it’s available around the world, in many languages.
… yet I have locks.
- Users can’t login without providing identification and authentication.
- Once logged in, the user can lock the screen.
- In Windows Explorer, protected directories are displayed with a padlock icon.
- There are file locks and filesystem/drive locks, to prevent concurrent access:
C:\Windows\system32> chkdsk /f
The type of the file system is NTFS.
Cannot lock current drive.
Chkdsk cannot run because the volume is in use by another
process. Would you like to schedule this volume to be
checked the next time the system restarts? (Y/N)
- Office documents can be locked against unauthorized editing.
- etc.
What am I?
Microsoft software (Windows and Office)
I am not valuable
do you mean no value at all? $\endgroup$ – me_digvijay Oct 17 '16 at 9:14