Tuesday, April 2 12:01 AM EST

Security Training Won't Take
Effect Until Microsoft Restarts

Redmond, WA - Microsoft has recently put programmers through a two month training program to increase security and stability in its software as part of its Trustworthy Computing Initiative. CEO, Steve Ballmer announced today that this training has progressed very well, but that changes "will not take effect until the company has been restarted."

Microsoft goes through scheduled and unscheduled restarts several times a week within its different divisions, but a company wide restart has not been attempted for 5 years when Bill Gates announced that the company would focus on the Internet. It took about 2 years for the company to become fully operational again.

"It takes a long time for a large, bloated company like Microsoft to restart. There's lots of programmers to change, and tests to go through. Plus, they're in the middle of a lot of stuff right now and they have to save all of that before they can restart," said Merrill Lynch analyst Winston Diettrich.

Ballmer announced in a rare corporate wide e-mail that employees would have 1 month to save their work before he hits Ctrl-Alt-Delete to restart the company.

"Microsoft must be very careful not to change course before this restart takes place," continued Diettrich. "Otherwise they'll have to put all their programmers through training again."

Employees inside the company voiced some concerns about the planned restart. "I don't mind these planned restarts," said one senior programmer, "but when I lose a week's worth of work because the company just restarts out of the blue I get annoyed. I wish we could get the restarts to go faster too. Usually when one is announced I'll plan my vacation around it. I'll go down to Colombia and get some coffee beans or something."

Microsoft has been working hard to develop a instant restart program for the company for several years but to no avail.

During the restart visitors to the Redmond headquarters will have to remain outside the building and stare at the Microsoft logo while the company is reconfigured.

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