(no subject)
One of my users has a Microsoft Word document with links to lots of images. His problem is that the links are absolute, not relative, so when he puts the document and the images on CD the images are not displayed when someone on another computer looks at the document. So, off I go to the Microsoft Office website to look for help, and that's where it all goes wrong.
My first couple of searches turn up Publisher-related pages, and sadly their search engine is so poor that adding "word" to the search just returns a bunch of generic Word documentation. So I click on the option to select the products I own, and it tells me that to save those I have to log into a Microsoft Passport account. Obviously saving them using a cookie wouldn't work, unlike every other website in the world. Argh!
Off I go to register, and because I don't want a Hotmail address I opt to use my work address. There's a box to enter an email address, and underneath it says:
The address can contain only letters, numbers, periods (.), hyphens (-), or underscores (_).
That leaves out lots of characters that are relatively rarely used, plus more common ones like . More importantly it excludes @, which is pretty important in an email address.
Microsoft, how do you get things so badly wrong?
Edited to add: there's also a security question, used when resetting your password (even though I have a separate email address they can mail to), and the answer must be a minimum of 5 characters. My first pet's name was shorter than 5 characters; similarly best childhood friend and mother's birthplace are shorter than 5 characters, and the others could be for other people.
My first couple of searches turn up Publisher-related pages, and sadly their search engine is so poor that adding "word" to the search just returns a bunch of generic Word documentation. So I click on the option to select the products I own, and it tells me that to save those I have to log into a Microsoft Passport account. Obviously saving them using a cookie wouldn't work, unlike every other website in the world. Argh!
Off I go to register, and because I don't want a Hotmail address I opt to use my work address. There's a box to enter an email address, and underneath it says:
The address can contain only letters, numbers, periods (.), hyphens (-), or underscores (_).
That leaves out lots of characters that are relatively rarely used, plus more common ones like . More importantly it excludes @, which is pretty important in an email address.
Microsoft, how do you get things so badly wrong?
Edited to add: there's also a security question, used when resetting your password (even though I have a separate email address they can mail to), and the answer must be a minimum of 5 characters. My first pet's name was shorter than 5 characters; similarly best childhood friend and mother's birthplace are shorter than 5 characters, and the others could be for other people.