The stranglehold of the titans has begun.
The sad saga begins here.
I left my computer on – exactly how I wanted it – with two Google Gmail accounts open along with a number of fully open Chrome windows.
I had several PDF’s open in Chrome and five Word documents that I was working on.
I have my own Zoom account and had a meeting later that day.
My computer went to sleep when I left it alone for a few minutes.
I came back and revived it.
My Windows 11 wallpaper greeted me, not the Chrome screen I left a half hour before.
In the tray at the bottom, Microsoft Teams popped up.
Zoom was gone from the tray.
I quit Microsoft Teams
I went to Zoom in the Apps and I had to open ‘all Apps’ with Zoom at the bottom under Z.
My first option was to ‘Uninstall Zoom’.
I bypassed it to open Zoom.
Zoom came up in the tray but so did Teams (again) and opened. I closed it.
My Zoom then worked.
I opened Edge which has my Adobe documents. They all had ‘windowed’.
I opened each one to full size. Two were missing. I retrieved them and opened them from ‘history’.
I opened Word to get my 5 documents. They had all windowed. I opened them again to full size. For some I got warnings to save them. The default is One drive – I bypassed it to save them to my computer.
I opened Google Chrome and was informed that Chrome was no longer my default browser.
I hit the button to make Google my default browser.
But all my tabs had disappeared.
I usually get a message telling me that Chrome had shut down and it then asks whether I would like to restore my chrome tabs and windows.
Not this time.
I went to history to retrieve them one by one.
My other Gmail window disappeared so I opened a new window, clicked on my avatar, opened my other account (user name-password), clicked on Gmail and opened it again.
Ten minutes later, I was exactly where I left off.
Twenty minutes later, I got a call and I had to retrieve some paper files.
My computer went to sleep again.
Later on, I opened it again and it was Groundhog Day.
My Windows 11 wallpaper greeted me, not the Chrome screen I left a half hour before.
Rinse! Repeat!
So, what’s going on?
I tried to ‘Google’ how to keep my computer from going through this long sequence of shuttering what I want to do.
I got hundreds of webpages that assumed I had a 6th degree black belt in ‘webspeak’.
I don’t have one and can’t follow them.
I am lost. I am bereft.
So, what is happening?
What I think is happening is that Google and Microsoft are having a big fight and that the bottom line is that I have to spend about an hour each day to get what I want on the screen in front of me.
Microsoft is trying to tell me that I can’t have it.
Microsoft intercepts Chrome and pitches me on the wonders of Edge a few times a week
Edge jumps in front of Chrome and shows me world vistas that I don’t want to see that are a waste of my time but it forces me to see them anyways.
Teams shuts down Zoom and launches itself unasked.
Window 11 gives me a first option to uninstall Zoom.
Windows 11 or something somewhere often deletes my Chrome icon and deletes my Chrome history.
Then Edge jumps ahead of Adobe Acrobat to open all my PDF’s when I want to work with them in the Adobe suite that does much more (which I pay for).
Then Windows 11 nudges me with a precious message to finish setting up my computer and Windows 11.
But finishing up means making all the Microsoft products my defaults.
Earth to Microsoft!
I don’t want Chat.
I just want Edge for a couple of specialized uses but not as my default browser.
I don’t want the opening world vistas in Edge.
I don’t want a Microsoft account.
I don’t want One Drive and I don’t want a Microsoft ‘Live’ email account.
I don’t want Outlook and I don’t want Office 365.
My question: can I buy a Computer with Windows 11 and run the applications I want?
Not it seems unless I am willing to spend over an hour every day choosing the software and applications I want.
So, is Microsoft tightening its belt around my neck?
Seems that way.
My question is: Can they be stopped or do they rule the world?
No wonder people think that Bill Gates has embedded microchips in peoples’ brains.
In a way, his company has done exactly that. I need one to start my computer.