I’m officially giving up on Windows 8.

Oh, there are things about it I enjoy.  It’s a nice platform.  But, Mr. Gates, you took my 6-year-old laptop computer that was running just fine on Windows 7 and neutered my ability to Skype on it.

No, really.  I’ve installed, uninstalled, rebooted, restarted and done everything in my bag of tricks to fix the issue.  But whenever I try to Skype, I get the modern version of the “Blue Screen of Death” that you made so famous, and my computer has to start over.  I’ve gone through the registry with a fine-tooth comb and after some Microsoft friends urged me to try and pursue help from support, I came up empty.  I tried several of the solutions given in the chats and none of them worked.

As recently as this afternoon, I fired up the laptop, tried it again and received another shutdown.  Oh, and I’ve played nicely–every time it does that, a message appears asking if I’d like to send along the damage report to the mothership and I say, “Yes.”  As a matter of fact, several dozen of those reports were sent to you from my laptop over the past couple of months.

But no worries.  I’m done.  I’m tired of trying to solve the problems  for which you offer no solution.  My solution was to go out and buy a Kindle Fire.  Problem solved.  We now get to Skype with my daughter, her husband and our granddaughter every Monday night, just like normal.

I now own an older laptop that does 95% of what it used to do, back in the pre-Windows 8 days.  The part that makes me upset the most is that YOU OWN SKYPE!  You’d think making your program co-operate with your new operating system would be a priority.  Here’s hoping you include that in your patch on the way this fall.

Tim Hunter