content: My company sells machine tools.  The smallest is right around $80K, the larger ones get into the $2-5M range. They are all controlled by a nice piece of software that runs on Windows 7.  The control works just fine as is. Just in this week alone, I have worked on several installations at customers who are automotive suppliers, roughly 15 machines, making products that go in the transmissions, axles, differentials, steering, and engines of Toyotas, Corvettes, Jeeps, and several military trucks.  Most of the machines we've set up for them are cranking out thousands of parts per day, most of them fully automated - including custom-built gauges that do 100% inspection, and feed back data to the machines to keep them fine-tuned to within ~10 microns of mean on every feature.  The gauges also run on a Windows platform. About a month ago, we were going through training at a shop that had purchased two fully automated cells.  The customer, despite our warnings against it, hooked the gauge up to their network so they could review data not only from the office, but also from the parent company on the other side of the state.  The machine communicates with the gauge through a shared folder on the gauge computer.  Because they were not able to get it working properly at the parent company, they gave both the machine and the gauge an open connection...  which allowed them both to update over the weekend after we completed training. The gauge software stopped communicating with one of the transducers on the gauge because of a small change to a communication port subroutine (according to the gauge company) and one of the critical diameters on the part stopped being updated (a diameter that gets a gear hobbed into it at a later operation.) The operators, not accustomed to actually measuring the parts (they load raw material into the machine, and load finished parts from the final wash into shipping containers) never thought to check the parts until the automatic gauge (~$200K) stopped working when a part got wedged in it and cracked a locating plate.  The problem of an undersized bore wasn't found until the part was pried off the gauge, but by then 2500 parts had already been shipped to the heat treat and hob house.  The bore had gotten smaller and smaller due to normal tool wear, and it happens so gradually that when the supplier destroyed a carbide hob ($2700) they assumed it was premature tool wear - the second one shattered on the next piece they ran. Missed deliveries and out-of-spec parts shipped to the customer cost the supplier more than just the cost of the parts and rebuilding the gauge and replacing damaged tools.  Bad parts delivered to the customer dock results in a mandatory 90-day period of 100% inspection of every part that goes out the door. They had to buy measuring tools for the 18 temps per shift they had to hire to check the parts for the next three months.  They had to rearrange their shop to accommodate the new inspection stations, which put production on hold on another product line for another customer.  Their quality rating slipped with a global auto maker.  Missed shipments resulted in thousands of dollars per hour in penalties.  They started racking up legal fees when they hired a team of lawyers to sue us, the gauge supplier, and the off-site IT department they contract to handle things like communication between gauges, machines, and corporate offices.  (Fortunately, we have a toc that clearly says the customer is encouraged to NOT hook the equipment up to a network without hiring our service department to do it, for this very reason.)    All of this is in a small farm community of ~3000 people.    There is a very good chance they (the local shop) will not survive this. Fuck Microsoft.