Update in 0 Minutes

Another day I was again watching a movie, and when it ended a popup appeared asking, do I want to perform Windows Media Update. I had no reason to say no, so I agreed. The next window informed me, that the update will take approximately zero minutes. I was happy to press "next". Again I forgot, that I was stuck in Windows.

The Fast Ride Begins

Now I have two windows open. One says: "Windows is being upgraded with Windows Media Player 10". Another one says: "Installing Windows Media Player 11". So which one is it. Still running. Zero minutes as predicted...

Now it finally finished saying that I have to restart my computer for the changes to take effect. WTF! This is one hell of a zero-minute upgrade.

And We Shall Continue After a Reboot

After Restart I open Media Player to see the new upgraded version. But instead I get a window asking me again to validate my Windows installation. (I just did it yesterday!)

I click the validate button. Then I get a screen asking me to agree with some license terms, which I probably don't agree with, but click the accept button anyway.

Then I get to choose between Express Settings and Custom Setting. As Express Settings are recommended I choose those and click Finish.

Another progress bar flashes and suddenly I'm confronted with a new Media Player which clearly looks different than the one I had before.

Memories

Actually my Media Player with its new skin looks utterly familiar. I have certainly seen it before. I'm pretty sure, I have seen it running inside another XP machine before.

I check Windows Media Player 11 entry in Wikipedia and find out, that its latest release was on 30^th of October 2006. That's over two years ago!

How can it be, that my computer was just upgraded with software released two years ago? I have been using this Windows machine over two weeks for now – why didn't the upgrade happen earlier? Actually, why didn't it happen two years ago? I'm pretty sure, this machine didn't just sat in the corner picking up dust for two years – somebody certainly used it, but for some strange reason he did not get the upgrade.

This leaves me to wonder whether I was magically chosen to receive this holy upgrade given only to the few of us.