On the tables inside the press room at the Microsoft Build Conference — a room full of computer-savvy tech press and industry analysts — lay printed instructions for how to complete a Wi-Fi connection in Windows 8.

Just Windows 8.

“Enter Desktop Mode by pressing (Windows Key) + D,” the 8.5 x 11 Wi-Fi lesson began. In contrast, the clerk at my hotel handed me — and anyone else with a reservation — a fortune cookie-sized slip of paper that provided nothing more than a SSID and network security key.

The photocopied tutorial serves as a comical exclamation point to what CEO Steve Ballmer tried to drive home during his opening keynote address: that Microsoft gets it. And it’s trying to do something about it.

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