Windows

Wow, they weren’t kidding that installing the Zune software sucks. Being in the biz, I decided to install the software so I could give it a spin and play with/evaluate it a little. Sure enough, this is what happened:

• Downloaded the installer,
• Quit open applications (as it asked me to) and hit install,
• Waited a really long time as it downloaded the actual installer (argh) and executed it,
• Watched the installer fail with the following error: “An error occurred while installing the Zune software”,
• Clicked on the web help link,
• Was forced to enter in a Windows Live ID before I could see help — good thing I had one, or otherwise I would have had to go through all the steps of registering,
• Read that the cause was one of four things, mostly stuff an average person wouldn’t understand or have access to,
• Followed the “Things To Try” section to read the exact event log that was created when the installer failed
• Found the event log, which read — and I’m not joking — “Product: Zune — Installation failed.”

Oh, really?

Just a short comment on Apple officially enabling the dual-booting of Windows XP on Intel-based Macs:

If the halo effect of people starting with iPods and then moving to Macs wasn’t enough, this will certainly add to it.

And considering the workflow issues of dual-booting, the only market this will eat away is a very extreme niche one — one that is still best served with two computers and a KVM switch.