Sometimes the “new Microsoft” (what with their neat programming language features, wicked cool user-interface eye candy, rock-star evangelists, and so forth) makes me forget why I used to have such a dim view of that vendor- of- a- word- processor- that- failed- to- change- significantly- over- 13- years- and- five- major- revisions.

Yesterday, I uninstalled a trial copy of Microsoft Money 2006. (You guessed it; didn’t sport a single significant revision.) The uninstaller corrupts my Money 2003 install and causes Windows to display these dialogs every time I try to access Windows Explorer (to browse my hard drive, network, etc.), Internet Explorer (to run Windows Update), etc.:

I have no idea where my original CD is.

And then, I remember why I had such a dim view.

I have no idea how non-techies can live with this stuff. I really hope Vista makes sense of Microsoft’s screwy application deployment model.