Microsoft needs to pull its finger out

So being a 'fan', if you will, of video games, I decided to look at the trailer for Grand Theft Auto IV as it was advertised today on the MSN home page. After clicking on the link I was told that I needed to install a piece of software called Microsoft Internet Explorer 6 and then reload the page.. for which I was offered a place to click in the Firefox browser I was using!

After a grumble and firing up Internet Explorer, I was presented with basically a slide show of still images from the game. I watched through to the end, thinking perhaps it will actually move once it replays. It did. For a couple of seconds. Followed by another slide show in exactly the same positions as the first showing. The sound worked fine both times.

As I type this, I've been letting it repeat. Its not much better now than it was the second time - in fact its exactly the same as it was the first time.

It strikes me that, if it is required that one has to open this page in a specific browser - notably Microsoft's own browser, then it should work on any system with a Microsoft operating system installed. I mean, surely that's not too much to ask!

Now I'm far from being a stranger from technical issues with regard to computers - I have worked as a PC Technician and studied 'Computing' at university. But I simply couldn't be bothered having to go through the process of finding out exactly what is wrong with this driver, or that driver, or this plugin or that plugin, or this video codec or that video codec in order just to see a bloody avert for a game!

I'm a techie. If I'm having problems then others will undoubtedly be having problems also. But others wouldn't necessarily know the first thing about how to fix a problem like this. Some will probably phone their tech support or retailer of their PC at £1-50 per minute.

My PC is well above average for a home user, and still rates above entry level for a desktop.. or thereabouts. I haven't bought Microsoft's new OS, Vista yet - frankly I don't have the confidence in them to trust it yet. There's security and backwards compatibility and bugs galore that will probably take an age to sort out.

I appreciate the complexity of modern software suites of course. I appreciate also the added complexity of third-party add-on software and hardware components. But Microsoft, and other companies too, need to look at a lower Lowest Common Denominator or something. This is but one of a string of annoyances that has led me to waste time posting this in place of wasting time attempting to fix whatever problem it is I have with a video not playing in Microsoft's Internet Explorer!

Of course, I have Microsoft's MSN Messenger.. what do they call it now? MSN Live Messenger? Anyway, I have that running too currently. Frig knows if that huge resource hog has anything to do with it!

/endrant