A gift from Windows 10

[bwt1213]

I was playing and I must have touched something I shouldn't have, or "selected" something I didn't see. Without any confirmation or dialog whatever, the font size became smaller and all the lines went off the layout grid. So the statistics presented look like this now (except that the gray lines shown here and the black border on the top don't show at ALL:
his puzzle's stats:

Usage	All	4	5	6	7	8	9+
Common:	93	51	30	5	6	1
Wide:	59	27	19	6	3	2	2
Rare:	31	9	8	8	5	1
Ultra Rare:	86	36	31	7	5	2	5

Played: 14 times
High Score: 219 points by wordmoz
Most Words: 58 words by DeltaDawn
Best Word: 10 points by wemarg
Longest Word: 9 letters by wemarg


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So, here are the questions: (1) What happened? (2) This is not the first little nugget Windows has dropped on me without any apparent notice, so why IS there no notice? (3) Will I have to just learn to live with the smaller type for the rest of my life, or is there a cure?

[bwt1213]

Ok, so I found out how to do it, and I must have done it myself without realizing it. Hold down the ctrl key, then use the wheel on the mouse to scroll the text larger or smaller. The problem is that I swear I wasn't touching the mouse at any time. But, boy, that sure is INTUITIVE. Just like the rest of Windows and most every other graphically-oriented interface, so completely obvious that it will drive you nuts. (Yes, that's very heavy sarcasm.)

[DonGuy47]

My friend calls that an "FU" button, when you hit something by mistake, and Windows does some horrible thing, and you have no idea what you touched or how to fix it.

[bwt1213]

My wife had been struggling with her email for about six months. She'd accidentally made the type really small and almost impossible to read, and she'd had no idea how to fix it. Neither did I. I don't know how I got lucky and found the solution this time (or why I was so unlucky and couldn't find it before), but if anyone else EVER does that to themselves, now you know: ctrl key and hold it down, then scroll with the mouse wheel.

But, seriously, there have been so many of those kinds of things that are really awful, and you did it and you have no idea what you did or how to undo it, and sometimes you can't even explain what it is that has been done. I remember putting all the startup commands on the bottom or the top or the left or the right. BOOM! There they were. No way to put them right again, no help, no advice, but golly it was so darned intuitive! I knew Bill Gates before he was worth a million dollars, and sometimes I think I should have punched him out. Except that someone else would have done the exact same thing and called it "intuitive". Probably Steve Jobs, who I never met. Woz was a cool dude, though. I think I probably would have hated Jobs, but then again I was a programmer and did what I wanted.

[leabhar]

When I upgraded to Windows 10 I lost a lot: hotmail, gmail. Also a lot of things were not working right. Trying to contact Microsoft for help is ehm... (&*@#!) as you get the same standard email reply. I had MORE than enough of Microsoft and transferred to Apple. Never regretted it. I still have to work with the Office programs (Office for Apple) for my work, but have an anger fit about them almost every day. The upgrades are ridiculous and when Office programs need to be updated (which happenes automatically) it takes me over 30 minutes to start my computer. In two years time I will retire and I will happily remove all the Microsoft rubbish from my computer!

[dannyb]

As my son told me almost twenty years ago, "If you want a Microsoft product that doesn't suck, wait for them to make a vacuum cleaner."

[bwt1213]

When I upgraded to Windows 10 I lost a lot: hotmail, gmail. Also a lot of things were not working right. Trying to contact Microsoft for help is ehm... (&*@#!) as you get the same standard email reply. I had MORE than enough of Microsoft and transferred to Apple. Never regretted it. I still have to work with the Office programs (Office for Apple) for my work, but have an anger fit about them almost every day. The upgrades are ridiculous and when Office programs need to be updated (which happenes automatically) it takes me over 30 minutes to start my computer. In two years time I will retire and I will happily remove all the Microsoft rubbish from my computer!

I wrote a long and detailed response to your post. Nearly at the end, I did SOMETHING (don't know what, but I know it happens pretty often) and 2/3 of what I wrote was just deleted. Like that, gone. No warning, no confirmation, and no recovery. That's not even Windows, that's someone taking lessons from Gates et al.

So here's the summary: (1) Open Office is freeware and can read and write Microsoft files. That includes the Office suite. Microsoft Office can read and write Open Office files, too. You update Open Office when you choose. (2) Linux/Unix can be a valid replacement for Windows. The Apple OS is basically Unix. The problem for Linux/Unix is support for device drivers and installing them yourself. Some makers offer Linux pre-installed and will support it, as Apple does. Open Office will run under Linux. I am certain that some of the people playing this game are running Linux and know more about what you can and can't do easily. But the broader point is that Open Office will run on Linux/Unix/Windows, and therefore I am sure it will run on your Apple. If moving your work to Open Office will make your life better and take some revenue from Microsoft, I'm sure you and I will both be pleased.

[leabhar]

I wrote a long and detailed response to your post. Nearly at the end, I did SOMETHING (don't know what, but I know it happens pretty often) and 2/3 of what I wrote was just deleted. Like that, gone. No warning, no confirmation, and no recovery. That's not even Windows, that's someone taking lessons from Gates et al.

So here's the summary: (1) Open Office is freeware and can read and write Microsoft files. That includes the Office suite. Microsoft Office can read and write Open Office files, too. You update Open Office when you choose. (2) Linux/Unix can be a valid replacement for Windows. The Apple OS is basically Unix. The problem for Linux/Unix is support for device drivers and installing them yourself. Some makers offer Linux pre-installed and will support it, as Apple does. Open Office will run under Linux. I am certain that some of the people playing this game are running Linux and know more about what you can and can't do easily. But the broader point is that Open Office will run on Linux/Unix/Windows, and therefore I am sure it will run on your Apple. If moving your work to Open Office will make your life better and take some revenue from Microsoft, I'm sure you and I will both be pleased.

Yes, I have used OPen Office and there is an Apple edition. Sad thing is that my work uses the Office 365 package with Teams etc. Open Office doesn't have that facility. Thank you though for your help, much appreciated!