I recently blew up a motherboard, and in the process of rebuilding had to abandon XP for Windows 7. This has had some good points and bad points...but that's not the point.

I have played chess for decades, and had some sort of chess program on every computer I've ever had. The Chessmaster series has been pretty well done, though I personally have preferred Sargon. Fritz is good, and older versions are available as freeware. My XP machine had an abandonware version of Sargon that was so old it requires DOSBox to run. But chess is chess, and other than upgraded graphics that I don't care about...

Anyway, upon installing W7 I find not just the usual Minesweeper and Solitaire, but it includes a Chess program. "Cool," says I, "that saves me having to figure out DOSBox settings for the old Sargon."

EXCEPT...it can't play worth a snap!

This is freakin' MicroSoft!

This is the 21st century!

Chess programs exceeded human capability ten years ago, and MicroSoft has money in pretty much infinite stacks. How could they put out a chess program, even as a minor accessory, that is so bad? I mean, I wasn't expecting Deep Blue here, but c'mon!