I was sitting at my desk, reading a book and realized that the glare from my PC was very bright and irritating my eyes. After playing with my screen contrast, I figured a darker theme would be the solution. So I right-click my desktop and select Properties. I didn’t see any themes that appealed to me. I then see an option for More themes online… . So I selected this option. I waited with great anticipation as Windows opened up a web browser. Instead of getting a list of glorious themes to choose from, I get a nice 404 error page. We’re sorry, but we were unable to service your request. You may wish to choose from the links below for information about Microsoft products and services.

How professional! A feature built within an operating system that is used by millions of people takes me to a 404 error page. I’ve been here before though. I can name countless times where a program that is a few years old has a URL built into it that no longer works. Just last week I was trying to update an old copy of The Sims for my girlfriend and the URL for the update they had provided in the Start Menu didn’t work anymore (a problem I see with many EA games).

It doesn’t take much to search for an update, but it’s fucking annoying to click on a button that was built into an application and get a 404 error. I understand pages have to move, and things change on web sites over time, but do they not know how to configure a 301 redirect to an alternate page?

Here’s an idea. How about having all of you software programmers get the web developers in a room and letting them know “Hey guys! We’re building this into the software. We need this link to stay active for the sanity of our customers.” It will prevent your company from looking like a bunch of jackasses that don’t care to support software that is more than 2 years old.