Stories about technical mishaps during official presentations are numerous. From the blue screen with the USB scanner under Windows 98, to the voice recognition on Vista, and the WiFi disaster at the iPhone 4 keynote, there are times when a piece of technology simply refuses to cooperate. That’s what happened to a Microsoft engineer during a session explaining how to migrate apps and data to Azure. The Edge browser failed at a critical moment, so his solution was to install Chrome and continue the demo.
Discovering errors in Windows isn’t exactly difficult. Unfortunately, one of the worst things a user can do is seek help in Microsoft forums, which are filled with meaningless suggestions and canned replies from a random MVP in the middle of nowhere. Even more complicated is trying to identify the warnings in the Event Viewer. A simple search leads to hundreds of users with the same issue, and a total absence of official solutions. However, something that trumps all that is when the error appears during a live presentation. Due to the mysterious nature of some Windows errors and the impossibility of fixing them in time, sometimes the best thing to do is take a shortcut, as happened in this video. Click at the 37:05 minutes and you’ll see what I mean.
Indeed, the demonstration explains the process of migrating applications, data, and complete workloads to Microsoft Azure, but the engineer in charge ran into a tantrum from the Edge. Faced with the need to continue the presentation, he decided to cut his losses and install a copy of Google Chrome. The whole situation was amusing, and he earned applause from the attendees. He also commented that Edge was "a little stuck" regarding permissions, and that some things "simply don’t work". Another possibility is that the error is related to the use of InPrivate mode, which often causes some headaches, as does Incognito mode in Chrome.
Beyond the comedic effect, the engineer handled the pressure well, implemented the right tool, and was able to continue his work. We hope there are no negative consequences, and that the experience serves to improve Edge, because it honestly needs a lot of adjustments.
