> "congress wanted to know why users weren't forced to update their computers"
That sounds made up. Happy to be proven wrong, but I doubt congress demanded to know why people aren't being forced to update Windows. It's too weirdly specific.
In the early 2000s, nobody was forced to do anything. Even for games, patches were uncommon because people bought the CD-ROM. If the game had bugs, the process of finding the patch, if it existed, was not accessible to most people.
well, it would be weirdly too specific if the conversation didn't lead to it, but it did.
"how did this happen?
> Bugs were found in windows systems which allowed this.
"can you not fix those?"
> we can.
"why didn't you fix them?"
> We did, the patches have been available for months in the worst case.
"then why are computers running your operating system still affected?"
> Because users have not downloaded and applied the patches.
"why not? are they not encouraged to do so?"
> We make them available but a user must choose to do it.
"Why do you not force this? This seems like an easy way to address the issue of unpatched operating systems."
> We cannot control what the users of our operating systems do.
"Not good enough. Clearly your current stance is not sufficient given the state of the Internet right now."
> Ok.
========
Very much paraphrased, but that's how I remember it going. I watched the thing live on C-SPAN and I don't know if it was blogged about anywhere. Even then the internet hated Microsoft even though most of its users ran Windows.
That sounds made up. Happy to be proven wrong, but I doubt congress demanded to know why people aren't being forced to update Windows. It's too weirdly specific.
In the early 2000s, nobody was forced to do anything. Even for games, patches were uncommon because people bought the CD-ROM. If the game had bugs, the process of finding the patch, if it existed, was not accessible to most people.