At which point did things go horribly awry?

Honestly, I could flip a quarter to determine which mistake was more tragic.

The mistakes, of course, were using Bing and using Internet Explorer.  Sadly, they both took place at the same time.

One of the PCs I’m charged with maintaining hasn’t behaved correctly in a few months.  Certainly that particular browser and search engine aren’t really on my list of programs or applications which deserve a double click from yours truly.

None the less, the user of the particular machine has no problem with said atrocities, and is pretty much locked into their favorite modes of Internet surfin’ without any desire for a more fulfilling experience on the web.

As if that weren’t enough, the MS Office suite on the machine in question is belligerent.  Outlook opens and works correctly.  The other programs in the suite choose to extend the middle finger to anyone who tries to open them at all.

Remember the good old days when the Microsoft goal of putting a computer on every desktop was nothing but the ambitious ramblings of a nerd?

I wonder if that goal had elements of file extraction and program initiation errors when that was dreamt up.