Continuing on the theme of bad UI, this week’s hall of shame goes to VMWare. Sad, because they used to “get it”, or so it seemed to me.
Background:
I have long been a VMWare user. I have (purchased) a license for Workstation and Fusion, the desktop products for virtualization on the PC and Mac platforms respectively. On the PC Side, I use Workstation to segment software that seems invasive (Sales Logix, I am looking at you) from my main install. On the Mac it is to use the (dwindling) PC only apps that I can’t live without.
The situation:
Two weeks ago, I took the plunge and upgraded to Mountain Lion (OS-X 10.8), and my version of Fusion wasn’t supported. Off to the VMWare website. In the past, I would just log in, and the option to view my licenses and download my entitled products was on the main page.
Now they have this my.vmware.com stuff. I can find my licenses OK, but downloads? It seemed I could only sign up for a demo version to download. No amount of navigation got me there. And yes, I know that using the demo version would work, but then you get harassed by their inside sales people. Another story for another day.
I ended up searching, and finding the download page on the main site. But still the my.vmware.com site kept trying to navigate me back to it. Argh. Perhaps if I spent time on their site every week, it would make sense, but for my, the 2 or 3 visits a year, it was painful.
I am sure this will not be the last installment in UI ridiculousness.
