I’ve been a Visual Studio Professional licensee for decades. For almost all those years my license simply autorenewed (although I did have a bit of a challenge when Microsoft revamped how the license was offered). But basically, this was a set-it-and-forget-it situation. Which is exactly what it should have been.
Unfortunately, last fall when the license was set to renew my credit card got hacked. That necessitated providing the new card number to the Visual Studio licensing system. Since that’s not an uncommon occurrence with online business relationships, I didn’t think it would be a problem.
But I failed to consider how difficult a giant, long-established company like Microsoft can make even simple tasks…if their focus is elsewhere. Which, nowadays, with all the money they’re spending on cloud services and AI, apparently doesn’t include old-fashioned things like developers, particularly single developers. After all, pretty soon all code is going to be written by AI, right?
When I tried to find the place within the Azure portal where I could enter the new credit card information I ran into two problems:
- For reasons known only to Microsoft, I have two Azure accounts. Both are tied to the same email address (my primary one). But one is a “work or school” account while the other is a “personal” account. I think, although I do not know for sure, that the “work or school” account derives from the fact I am both a Microsoft 365 licensee (e.g., Excel, Word, PowerPoint, Exchange). The “personal” account appears to be related to my being a Windows licensee. Whatever the reason, this duality makes dealing with the Azure portal complex. Who am I right now, Personal Mark Olbert or Work/School Mark Olbert? Note to self: always choose the “use another account” option when you log into Azure, as doing so requires you to specify which Mark Olbert you want to be. And always choose the Personal Mark Olbert when Azure asks.
- I rarely use Azure…and it is a textbook example of how one should not allow engineers to design UIs. Unless they’ve been taught a lot about human nature and perception. Put another way, the Azure UI comes across as being written by engineers (who lack that broader skill set) for engineers who already know what they want to do and how to use the UI to do it. Mere mortals need not apply.
After struggling with trying to find the credit card info I needed to update I contacted support. Sadly, the person I was assigned (a) rarely bothered to read the information I sent her and (b) clearly didn’t know what she was doing. After a number of increasingly-heated exchanges she finally told me “Problem solved” and ran away. I presumed she was correct because a nearly $600 payment to Microsoft cleared my credit card.
I even got an email from her manager, sort of apologizing for what I’d been through but asking me to be tolerant because some issues are just, you know, hard to solve. Like accepting payment for services? Gee, I thought that was business 101. And that any company that’d been around as long as Microsoft would (a) understand this and (b) want to make it easy for people to give them money in exchange for products and services.
Unfortunately, a couple of months later I learned the problem wasn’t solved. Because all of a sudden Visual Studio announced “hey, your trial license is about to expire.” Trial license? WTF? I paid you klongs nearly $600 in December 2024 for an annual license!
I contacted support again. In parallel, I tried contacting the original support agent (and her manager) as well but didn’t hear back from them. Which was consistent with their lousy and incompetent approach to customer service, I suppose, but still a disappointment. Apparently, Microsoft doesn’t see accountability and taking responsibility as important.
This second go-around was even more difficult than the first one. Because Microsoft cleverly obfuscated just what part of their support system I should contact (almost makes you think they don’t want to solve customer problems). I rapidly met and was sent onwards by several agents.
Finally, I got an agent who took the time to read the material I’d provided and realized she needed to invoke a higher level of experience/knowledge. It took longer than I liked to coordinate that (my trial license expired in the meantime), but eventually a second level agent got involved…who after working the problem jointly with me online realized he needed to bring in a third level agent. Who did, finally, solve the problem in a single meeting. Joy and rapture! We are saved!
But I was surprised to learn it took a third level Azure expert to solve the problem. And the solution wasn’t straightforward, even for her. As I told her during the wrap-up, if she’d said “I promise you the solution is in the Azure UI, you just need to find it” I would never, in a million years, have been able to do so. Because it required a number of steps that (a) didn’t appear to be related to solving the problem and (b) sure as hell weren’t clearly indicated as being related to solving the problem in the UI.
That’s a flare-lit tipoff if there ever was one that the Azure UI sucks. Big time.
Which should be a major embarrassment to Microsoft. But apparently isn’t, because the Azure UI has only gotten more and more obscure over time, as more and more “functionality” got added to it. I guess “completing a sales transaction” isn’t considered important functionality by Microsoft.
The overall experience I had should also be a major embarrassment to Microsoft. If the fundamental basis of market capitalism is exchanging money for goods and services, streamlining the sales process should be Job Number One. But it obviously isn’t at Microsoft.
Now, to be fair, that may be because they just don’t care about single developers like me. Because another key aspect of market capitalism is businesses get to choose (within various legal constraints) who they wish to have as customers. In that sense, it’s okay if Microsoft doesn’t need or want my business anymore.
But I do wish they’d just tell me that. Rather than taking my money, not providing the license I’d paid for, and then making me spend oodles of time getting access to what I’d already purchased.